AI Literacy Gap is Insane

A Martech founder made me understand the gap that surveys and reports never could.

We're on social media 24/7 surrounded by people talking about AI, so it starts to feel like AGI is inevitable. Step outside that bubble and millions and millions still don't know a thing.

I realized this after a conversation with a martech founder who builds AI agents for a living. And the fun part is, he actually admits the AI agents he builds are basically wrappers — nothing groundbreaking or earth-shattering.

But the interesting part is, he knows exactly who to sell them to.

He told me about an HOD at JBL who got a demo of his marketing AI agents. After the demo, this HOD guy was like, “can you teach me how to create a WhatsApp broadcast channel, I want to create it for a family trip?”

My honest reaction was, how tf did this guy even become an HOD at JBL? lol

And then I thought deeply about it and a realization hit me.

It's us who spend our days yapping about AI agents, automation, Claude skills, AI replacing jobs, AI this, AI that. We're surrounded by AI slop (and human slop talking about AI because it drives engagement). So it feels like AI doomsday is near.

The reality, however, is very different. Big companies in manufacturing, BFSI, logistics, energy, life sciences and other traditional industries are still barely getting started.

They have the money. They have the workflows. They have the bottlenecks. But still they are in the early stages of AI adoption, some probably don't even understand the difference between an AI agent and Agentic AI.

Meanwhile, we have founders and builders building AI companies and chasing customers who already understand AI and know how not to get carried away because of the hype.

And this is where things get interesting. AI companies might be targeting the wrong audience. The real opportunity could be sitting with the traditional industries who have bare minimum tech enablement or are still in the 'figuring out what AI does' phase and not those companies who are digital transformed already.