2025: Year of AI disillusionment
Aka we got tired of the AI hype
In hindsight, the Humane AI Pin — shuttered and its assets sold to HP earlier this year — was but one canary in the coal mine. The AI hype after ChatGPT’s spectacular debut in 2022 was never going to last forever. And 2025 is the year the cries of AI doubters became louder than the hype merchants.
The MTI study, which found that 95% of companies are failing at making generative AI work for them, was the first big crack in the facade. It spawned numerous stories, including ours, about whether AI companies have been over-promising the capabilities of AI. This narrative hasn’t quite gone away, amplified by OpenAI’s increasingly desperate attempts to solicit funding to justify its massive investments in a bid to reach the holy grail of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
OpenAI isn’t the only one in this race. Google, Meta and Musk’s xAI startup are also putting huge sums in AI infrastructure, and doubling down on a brute-force approach to AI. Meanwhile, Chinese AI firms are choosing to release cheaper open-source AI models. This approach poses significant risks to leading AI firms. When China’s DeepSeek R1 model was released in January, the Nasdaq index fell by 3 percent. With American AI firms pouring billions into AI, the consequences of it all crashing down — perhaps after a breakthrough from a Chinese AI model that exceeds ChatGPT — could be disastrous.
And we haven’t even gotten to the societal impact of AI, which are now increasingly being felt by everyone. From potential job losses to the harms from AI chatbots to AI slop taking over the internet, we are all grappling with this new technology. But I’m optimistic that most of us are finally seeing AI without rose-tinted glasses. So as we go into 2026, it should take a lot more to convince folks that this AI gizmo or app or tool is going to make everything right.
In our latest reviews, we tested a huge ultra-wide OLED monitor from LG, tried a Bosch cordless vacuum cleaner, and put a compact Asus PC through its paces.
Leve up your gaming experience with the massively ultra-wide 45-inch LG UltraGear GX9 OLED monitor. This curved display has two modes — it can run at its native 2160p resolution at 165Hz or at a fast 330Hz at 1080p resolution. You can also shrink the usable display to optimise your performance in fast-paced action games. But be prepared to pay S$2,399 for it.
With its powerful suction, a 100-minute run time, and a dust detection system, the Bosch Unlimited 10 ProPower is a solid cordless vacuum cleaner. You can even make the main tube bend with a button press to reach less accessible areas under your furniture. But it may not be suitable for everyone due to its weight (around 3.8kg).
Despite being about the size of a book, the Asus ROG NUC (2025) is a powerhouse of a computer that can run the latest games at ridiculously high frame rates (thanks to Nvidia’s DLSS 4 technology). Inside its compact body is an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and a GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop graphics chip. There are also plenty of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4. It’s not cheap, though, at S$4,299 for the highest-end version that we tested.