What's actually real in AI right now versus the hype?

The "agents will replace your whole team next quarter" talk is mostly people selling shovels. The real, boring, enormous value is in narrow agentic workflows pointed at one painful, repeated task.

Most of the value over the next few years comes from unglamorous reliability work, making one thing trustworthy and repeatable, not from the magic. The teams chasing AGI cosplay are going to get quietly lapped by the ones who made a single workflow eighty percent cheaper and actually dependable. So when a breathless headline lands, ask what expensive decision or repeated task it would actually make better at your business. If the answer's nothing concrete, it's hype. If it's something specific, that's where to look.