By the start of 2025, ChatGPT had been around for just over two years, and the AI conversation had shifted fast—from “generative” hype to genuinely agentic capabilities. In this video, I break down what that actually looked like in the real world: Agentforce growing as both a product and a capability set, businesses trying to find value, and a lot of teams getting stuck in what I called “pilot purgatory”. On paper, AI was the strategy to get an edge. In practice, the costs, confusion, and reliability issues made the story a lot messier than the headlines suggested. I also dig into the layoffs narrative—because “AI did it” became the default explanation, and that’s where the idea of “AI-washing” really took off. Around 125,000 tech employees were laid off across 271 companies in 2025 (still huge, but actually 20% lower than 2024), with big names like IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce in the mix. Then the pendulum started swinging back: IBM announced it was tripling entry-level hiring after finding the limits of AI adoption, and Salesforce reportedly pulled back from heavy LLM usage after reliability issues—refocusing on predictable automation. My takeaway: AI strategy is evolving in real time, and companies that ditch the talent pipeline will feel it later—especially when they realize juniors are where some of the best ideas come from.