Grok Archives - Cyber Protection Magazine

Gartner hype cycle shows generative AI well down the slope into the trough if disillusionment

Credibility and fortunes at risk with AI

Lou Covey October 8, 2025

The failure of the current iteration of generative AI to live up to its promises is putting severe strain on its credibility. A collapse could result in the destruction of personal wealth on a massive scale. While it is probably a given that the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is here to stay, questions are many. What form will survive, what will it really cost, and what is the near-term effect on other sectors like the cybersecurity industry?
There are more than 5,000 cybersecurity tool providers and thousands more MSSPs and all of them, in some form, are reliant on AI to some degree. Cybersecurity marketing, investment, and especially technology development could be a disastrous dependency… or not.
AI startup funding reached $333 billion in 2024 AI in 2024. Global venture capital funding for generative AI reached approximately $45 billion in 2024, from $24 billion in 2023 AI Investment Trends 2025. AI-related investments accounted for 33 percent of total investments into VC-backed companies in the U.S. This year, global venture capital investment in generative AI appears ready to dwarf those totals, with $49.2 billion in the first half of 2025. It is on track to exceed $100 billion this year .
The big knock on AI is the lack of an effective infrastructure to support the claims the AI companies are making on potential uses. In response, tech giants are making massive infrastructure investments: More than $300 billion has been invested this year on AI infrastructure tech megacaps plan to spend more than $300 billion in 2025 as AI race intensifies.

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

A brief history of bots

Lou Covey June 5, 2025

Bots have been around for more than half a century to automate repetitive tasks and provide services on early internet platforms. The first was ELIZA, developed as a research project in 1966 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the goal was to simulate conversations with a human being. ELIZA conversed with users, although it did not understand what the user was saying. Artificial intelligence chatbots are much more sophisticated versions of ELIZA, but still lack human comprehension.

Bots not replacements

The purpose of ELIZA was to determine if computers could replace psychoanalysts. Consequentially, it was the first time the prediction that computer could replace humans had some hard evidence. Today, there are mental-health AI applications with not much better results than ELIZA but projected to have a $8 billion market by 2032.

In 1988, the earliest broad use of bots was Internet Relay Chat (IRC) automating user list management, searches, and providing services like weather updates or game scores. But these were not known as bots at the time. They were called automations and still required a human interface to operate,

Premium Membership Required

You must be a Premium member to access this content.

Join Now

Already a member? Log in here