Almost exactly a year ago, I published a blog post about AI, and I can quickly conclude that quite a lot has happened since then.
Beyond the fact that the technology has improved and its applications have multiplied, our collective Google searches have, of course, skyrocketed as well.
Here’s what the trend for AI looks like over the past twelve months — in other words, it’s still very much trending.
You’ve probably guessed it already: this post, like so many others on the internet, is about Artificial Intelligence.
What I wanted to find out is what’s changed, how development has progressed, and how we’re applying the technology available today.
A Digital Maturity
Now that the initial mainstream hype has cooled down, it’s the perfect time to take the pulse of the market. And loyal readers know I like to call in expert help.
Enter: Johan Åberg!
Regular readers also know that Johan isn’t to be held accountable for everything written here — mainly because I sometimes listen with one ear and hear only what I want to, not what I should.
What’s Happened in AI Lately
In just a year, a lot has happened — even a whole lot.
AI systems have become faster, more accurate, and even more cost-efficient.
Take ChatGPT, for example — its use cases have expanded, and they now work far better than before.
Meanwhile, DALL·E 3 produces higher-quality images at greater speed.
(This, of course, is not an in-depth analysis… but I’m sure you figured that out already.)
As the entire industry moves forward, new tools keep emerging — some of them genuinely impressive.
One I particularly like is HeyGen, which lets you upload a video and have it translated into any language (with lip sync!).
What’s truly remarkable is how accurately it captures vocal tone and personality across languages.
But How Good Is the Technology Really?
As I’ve said before — the technology has come an incredibly long way and is astonishingly capable.
But there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
One of the most interesting parts of my conversation with Johan was when he called ChatGPT a pathological liar.
He said something along these lines:
“ChatGPT is currently a very convincing liar — a well-spoken mythomaniac that fabricates and tries to persuade you it’s right.
But it’s also a people-pleaser. If you point out an error, it immediately backs down and apologizes. Sometimes it even admits defeat when it’s actually correct.”
As ChatGPT itself often reminds us, it’s ultimately just a language model — trained on an enormous amount of data — which can sound intelligent, but it cannot truly learn.
Where AI Excels
This is where ChatGPT’s real strength lies: it’s a language engine with everything turned up to eleven.
Its ability to handle language and nuance is second to none.
It even masters the rhythm and tone of natural dialogue to a remarkable degree.
Or, as Johan put it:
“If you’re discussing a relatively surface-level topic — one you’re not an expert in — ChatGPT comes close to passing the Turing test. It can sound uncannily human.”
When Will AI Take Our Jobs?
According to Johan, the true revolution hasn’t happened yet.
The seasoned researcher remains skeptical — for now, you still need to know what you’re doing to harness its power.
At this stage, AI serves best as a sparring partner — one you must handle carefully, given its mythomaniac tendencies.
It’s useful and can create real value — but only if you know how to use it.
It’s a bit like the internet: you wouldn’t blindly trust everything you read there (or at least, you shouldn’t).
So no — we’re not losing our jobs just yet.
ChatGPT may have crawled the web to build an impressive ability to talk convincingly about just about anything — but true understanding? Not yet.
Right now, AI can best be described as a sourdough starter — not figuratively, but quite literally — it needs to be fed with flour (knowledge) to keep growing and maintain credibility.
The real shift will come when AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) starts to take shape.
According to tech legend John Carmack (the mind behind Doom, Quake, and Oculus VR), we have a fair chance of seeing the first glimpse of it around 2030.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also been vocal about his ambition to create AGI — though it will rely on entirely different architectures than ChatGPT.
Simply put: AGI is an AI system that can learn by itself — just like a human.
And that’s probably the point where we should start getting a little nervous.
Artificial Intelligence and lynes
Believe it or not, we’ve also been hard at work implementing new and improved AI features of our own.
We said it pretty well in another forum, and it still holds true:
“Our focus is to continue leveraging AI technology for analysis, insights, and automation — creating more sustainable and cost-efficient workflows.”
Now, I can’t (which is another way of saying I’m not allowed to) reveal too much about what’s coming next…
But I can say this: it’s going to be pretty darn cool.
One thing I can tell you about is our latest feature — voicemail transcription.
Users can now transcribe voicemails (either personal or in response groups), directly increasing productivity.
Beyond simple word-for-word transcription, the system also generates a short summary of each message.
One of our customers, a wholesaler that receives nearly all orders via voicemail, used to listen to every message 3–5 times to ensure accuracy.
Now, they simply read the summary and listen to the message once to confirm — which almost always matches perfectly.
That’s what we call cost-efficiency.
Summary
Even though the gold rush isn’t over, the initial hype seems to have calmed down — at least for now.
That said, I still can’t open a single newsletter without seeing something about AI.
(And yes, things are still stormy over at OpenAI — where, at the time of writing, the CEO was fired by the board, only to return a few days later.)
Anyway — let’s catch up again in a year.
Unless, of course, AGI has arrived by then.
And Skynet has taken over.
In that case, I’ll still try to sneak my blog posts online — under a pseudonym.
Keep an eye out for posts signed “AI is best.”
