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As is their tradition at this time of year, Apple announced a new line of iPhones last week. The promised centerpiece that would make us want to buy these new devices was AI—or Apple Intelligence, as they branded it. Yet the reaction from the collective world of consumer technology has been muted.

The only thing that did seem to generate some excitement was not the AI features, but the addition of a new camera shutter button on the side of the phone. If a button is a better selling point than the most hyped technology of the past couple of years, something is clearly amiss.

The reason is that AI has now passed what tech blog The Media Copilot called its "wonderment phase." Two years ago, we were amazed that ChatGPT, DALL-E and other generative AI systems were able to create coherent writing and realistic images from just a few words in a text prompt. But now, AI needs to show that it can actually be productive. Since their introduction, the models driving these experiences have become much more powerful—and exponentially more expensive.

Nevertheless, Google, NVidia, Microsoft and OpenAI recently met at the White House to discuss AI infrastructure, suggesting these companies are doubling down on the technology.

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