AI has yet to be truly transformational like the internet, CEO says

MongoDB's CEO said AI might help him write a better email, but it still has a ways to go before it fundamentally transforms his life.

• AI may be impressive, but it's not revolutionary yet, MongoDB's CEO said.
• Dev Ittycheria said we need to see more integration of AI with practical applications.
• AI-powered solutions need to incorporate real-time data into their responses to be the most useful, he added.

At least one executive thinks AI still has a ways to go for it to truly change the way we work and communicate in a big way.

"My life has not been transformed by AI," MongoDB CEO Dev Ittycheria said in an interview with TechCrunch. "Yes, maybe I can write an email better through all those assistants, but it's not fundamentally transformed my life. Whereas the internet has completely transformed my life."

That's not to say that Ittycheria is dismissing the potential of AI to eventually revolutionize the workplace, but the value of any new technology accrues "at the bottom layer first," he told the tech publication.

Ittycheria said that the "real value" of AI will come once existing platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT are fully integrated into more practical, everyday applications. Helping people develop applications — and those built on top of AI models — is MongoDB's "business," he added. The open-source database software firm has its own AI-powered projects in the mix, including its Atlas suite of data services.

AI services will have to incorporate "real-time data" to make them transformative to the average person, Ittycheria said.

"Maybe something's happening in the stock market, maybe it's time to buy or sell, or it's time to hedge," he told TechCrunch. "I think that's where we will start seeing much more sophisticated apps, where you can embed real-time data along with all the reasoning."

The AI boom has thrown the tech world into a frenzy, as companies large and small explore new ways of leveraging it. New tools are already starting to change areas like management culture.

Bill Gates has compared AI to seismic tech advancements like the invention of the PC or the internet.

But Ittycheria isn't the only one suggesting the transformative impacts of AI are still to come. Mark Zuckerberg, who has doubled down on Meta's AI efforts, recently warned wary investors that their efforts may take "several years" to bear fruit.