The AI hype bubble is deflating. Now comes the hard part.

A year and a half into the AI boom, there's growing evidence that the hype machine is slowing down. Drastic warnings about AI posing an existential threat to humanity or taking everyone's jobs have mostly disappeared, replaced by technical conversations about how to cajole chatbots into helping summarize insurance policies or handle customer service calls. Some once-promising start-ups have already cratered and the suite of flashy products launched by the biggest players in the AI race -- OpenAI, Microsoft and Google -- have yet to upend the way people work and communicate with each other. While money keeps pouring into AI, very few companies are turning a profit on the tech, which remains hugely expensive to build and run.