AI in Tech: Reality vs Hype Survey Results – April 2026

I’m allergic to hype.

While I enjoy a good trend, I have a full body allergic reaction to hype without substance. The kind where people get carried away and start declaring the end of professions as we know it.

The latest victim? GenAI.

To be clear, I’m not anti-AI. I’ve set up automated workflows that I use every day. The more time I invest into it, the more I see its potential to genuinely change how we work for the better.

But I am anti-noise. And right now, there is a lot of noise in the market. I practically break out in hives when I think about how ChatGPT has infiltrated our LinkedIn feeds, making them 80% more verbose and 95% more bland.

The same voice. The same clipped tone. The same tells, like ‘quietly’, ‘chaos’ and 'signal'. ChatGPT has flattened our personalities into the same beige version of “professional”.

The same thing is happening in products. I’m seeing more AI features that exist purely to tick a box – to look relevant, to impress investors, and ride the investor-funded gold rush wave.

You can’t miss it, the “AI” button with more sparkles than a toothpaste ad, usually about as useful as a dog wearing human dentures.

Now, when AI is applied thoughtfully? When it genuinely improves the user experience or helps people do something legitimately better? I’m all for it. Give me more of that.

But to get there, we need to cut through the hype and look at the reality. What's really happening for people with their hands on keyboards, building the products we know and love?

So instead of guessing, I did what any good product person does… I went to the data.

I surveyed product and tech peers across Australia (and one keen voice from the UK) to separate hype from reality.

Here’s what I found.

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