After the Hype
The AI hype is correcting, and that is healthy. CloudNala has already argued that the boardroom honeymoon is over and value has to be proved, that AI consumption is not AI value, and that the useful unit of cost is cost per accepted outcome. This five-part series builds on those three articles and asks what an organisation should do differently once it accepts them. It follows the five links between minutes saved and a business result, explains why narrow, embedded and boring uses are the ones that can show a return, applies an eight-question procurement test to sovereign AI spending by governments, and sets out an AI claims register with evidence grades, owners and expiry dates. It follows Tsitsikamma Hardware Group, a fictional building-supplies retailer headquartered in George; its systems and figures are illustrative. Research claims were checked on 3 November 2026. Part 5, added in November 2026, explains why a hype cycle is not an adoption plan.
5 articles
- Part 1Faster emails are not a business caseAn AI assistant that saves fifteen minutes a day per person sounds like a large saving until you ask where the fifteen minutes went. Part 1 of After the Hype sets out the five links between task speed and a business result, and why most AI business cases assume all five hold.9 min read
- Part 2Narrow, embedded and boring: where enterprise AI earns its keepThe AI uses that can show a return tend to be unglamorous: one task, inside an existing system, with a check on every output and a process owner who answers for the result. Part 2 of After the Hype explains why, sets out seven selection tests, and is honest about the limits of the evidence.7 min read
- Part 3Sovereign AI or sovereign spend? A procurement test for governmentsGovernments have real reasons to want control over AI: jurisdiction, continuity, language, skills and bargaining power. They also face pressure to buy prestige infrastructure. Part 3 of After the Hype separates the two with an eight-question procurement test.7 min read
- Part 4The AI claims registerAI decisions rest on claims: a vendor's accuracy figure, a team's time saving, a statistic quoted in a board paper. Most organisations never write them down, so nobody checks them. Part 4 of After the Hype sets out a register for claims, with evidence grades, owners, expiry dates and a provider-neutral schema.7 min read
- Part 5The hype cycle is not an adoption planA chart that places a technology at the peak or in the trough describes market expectations, not your readiness or your use case. Part 5 of After the Hype shows how to turn a forecast into a bounded experiment, evidence thresholds set in advance and staged investment decisions.7 min read
Working through any of this in your own organisation?
These articles come out of delivery work rather than theory. If the problems in this series look familiar, a short scoping conversation is usually the quickest way to work out what is worth doing first.
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