There is a new religion in town.
Sunday is now a LinkedIn carousel, the pulpit is a keynote stage, and the sermon is a breathless promise that AI will disrupt, transform, revolutionise and reimagine absolutely everything.
Then Monday arrives.
Your inbox is the same. Your workflows are the same. Your customers are the same. The only noticeable change is a new set of slide decks in a SharePoint folder and a leadership team that feels vaguely guilty for “falling behind”.
This is the Church of AI Hype.
It is noisy, confident, and almost completely detached from the operational reality inside most organisations.
This article is your way out.
The Hype-cycle Priests
### 1. The Visionary Without a Backlog
They talk in sweeping horizons.
Ask for a list of actual use cases, a delivery backlog, or a roadmap with dependencies and they flick to another slide about “the future of work”.
### 2. The POC Evangelist
They collect proofs of concept like Pokémon.
### 3. The Slide Deck Prophet
Their true product is the presentation.
### 4. The Tech Tourist
They drop in with grand statements about frontier models and agents.
Why This Version of “AI Transformation” Never Sticks
The Church treats AI as a story, not a system.
Reframing AI: From Spiritual Awakening To Operational Discipline
AI is closer to rolling out a new supply chain system than having an epiphany.
A Practical Framework To Escape The Church
- Start with a single workflow.
- Define one operational goal.
- Map the AI assisted workflow.
- Give someone operational ownership.
- Build the smallest version.
- Capture evidence, not vibes.
What To Do With The Hype Gurus
Ask them for specifics, owners, integrations, and measurable outcomes.
Final Thought
Less prophecy, more process.
That is where the real transformation lives.
