Artificial Intelligence Today: The Great Unbundling Accelerates
TL;DR: Artificial intelligence today has evolved from experimental technology to production-ready systems reshaping industries worldwide. AI can now reason through complex problems, generate multimodal content, and operate autonomously through agents—marking a pivotal moment in what J.Y. Sterling calls "The Great Unbundling" of human capabilities.
What Can Artificial Intelligence Do Today? The Reality of AI in 2025
The question "what can artificial intelligence do" has transformed dramatically. By January 2025, major AI models like Claude 3.5, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Llama 3.3, Phi-4, and OpenAI's o1 all gained multimodal capabilities, incorporating text, audio, and images, with advanced reasoning capabilities for multistep problem-solving becoming common across platforms.
This represents a fundamental shift from simple automation to systems that can understand, reason, and act—precisely the unbundling of human cognitive functions that Sterling explores in "The Great Unbundling."
The Current State: Beyond the Hype
Data and AI leaders report confidence in generative AI value generation, with 58% saying their organizations have achieved exponential productivity or efficiency gains from AI, while 92% of companies plan to increase AI investments over the next three years, though only 1% consider themselves "mature" in deployment.
This gap between investment and maturity reflects the profound challenge of integrating unbundled intelligence into human-centered systems.
The Rise of AI: From Bundled Human Intelligence to Specialized Systems
Why Is AI Popular Now? The Perfect Storm
The current AI boom represents what Sterling identifies as capitalism's unbundling engine reaching critical mass. Several factors converge to create today's artificial intelligence landscape:
Advanced Reasoning Capabilities: Models with advanced reasoning capabilities, like OpenAI o1, can solve complex problems with logical steps similar to how humans think before responding to difficult questions, useful in fields like science, coding, math, law and medicine.
Multimodal Integration: Multimodal AI integrates diverse data sources like images, video, code, and audio alongside text, enabling organizations to provide more sophisticated and personalized customer experiences.
Agentic AI Development: AI-powered agents will do more with greater autonomy, with 99% of developers exploring or developing AI agents according to IBM and Morning Consult surveys.
The Unbundling in Action: Current AI Capabilities
Cognitive Unbundling
- Problem-Solving: AI systems now break down complex tasks into manageable steps
- Pattern Recognition: Machine learning identifies trends invisible to human analysis
- Decision-Making: Autonomous systems make real-time choices without human intervention
Creative Unbundling
- Content Generation: AI creates text, images, videos, and code at scale
- Design Innovation: Generative 3D simulations could explore design concepts for new games, turning sketches into playable environments
- Musical Composition: AI composes original music across genres
Social Unbundling
- Communication: Chatbots handle customer service with human-like interaction
- Language Translation: Real-time multilingual communication breaks down barriers
- Emotional Recognition: AI systems analyze sentiment and emotional states
Artificial Intelligence Progress: The People Behind the Revolution
AI People in the World: Who's Driving Development
The artificial intelligence revolution involves key players across industries:
Technology Giants: Companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic lead frontier model development Enterprise Adopters: Workers at nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft 365 Copilot for repetitive tasks Research Institutions: Universities and labs push theoretical boundaries Startups: Specialized companies create niche applications
Real-World Applications Transforming Industries
Healthcare Revolution
38% of healthcare providers use computers for diagnostic assistance, while AI systems like AlphaFold predict protein structures that would take decades to understand manually. Microsoft Research's AI2BMD breakthrough allows unprecedented speed and precision in biomolecular science problems, including life-saving drug discovery.
Financial Services Transformation
AI algorithms analyze vast financial datasets for fraud detection, risk assessment, and automated trading. Banco BV, one of Brazil's largest private banks, uses Google Agentspace to enable employees to discover, connect, and automate with AI agents across data and systems.
Education Personalization
AI creates individualized learning experiences, provides real-time feedback, and adapts content to student needs. Personalized AI education systems equip students with adaptability and creativity needed in the 21st-century workforce.
Manufacturing and Automation
Smart factories use AI for predictive maintenance, quality control, and supply chain optimization, representing the physical manifestation of cognitive unbundling.
How Advanced Is AI Right Now? The Technical Reality
Current Capabilities vs. Limitations
What AI Can Do Today:
- Process and generate human-like text across multiple languages
- Analyze images, video, and audio with near-human accuracy
- Write functional code and debug software
- Conduct scientific research and analysis
- Make autonomous decisions in structured environments
What AI Cannot Do Yet:
- Achieve true consciousness or self-awareness
- Understand causation as deeply as humans
- Navigate completely novel situations without training data
- Replicate human emotional intelligence fully
- Maintain long-term memory across conversations
The Infrastructure Challenge
AI requires so much energy that there's not enough electricity or computational power for every company to deploy AI at scale, making it wise to treat AI as a value play, not a volume one. This resource constraint forces prioritization—a practical example of unbundling in action.
The Great Unbundling Framework: Understanding AI's True Impact
Historical Context: The Bundled Human Advantage
For millennia, humans dominated through bundled capabilities: analytical intelligence, emotional intelligence, physical dexterity, consciousness, and purpose existed within single individuals. Our societies, economies, and identities assume the person with ideas also feels passion and experiences consequences.
Today's Unbundling Process
Modern AI represents systematic isolation of each human function:
Intelligence Unbundling: AI systems surpass human cognitive performance in specific domains without consciousness or understanding
Creativity Unbundling: Generative AI produces original content without inspiration or emotional investment
Social Unbundling: AI tools analyze vast amounts of social media data in real time, providing insights into public sentiment and consumer behavior without genuine empathy
Economic Implications
McKinsey research sizes the long-term AI opportunity at $4.4 trillion in added productivity growth potential from corporate use cases. Yet this wealth creation occurs through capability unbundling, raising fundamental questions about human economic value.
Artificial Intelligence Nowadays: Navigating the Transition
The Professional Impact
One executive estimated that the output of a single software engineer has already risen by 10 times or more due to AI assistance. This productivity explosion exemplifies unbundling's double-edged nature—tremendous capability enhancement coupled with questions about human relevance.
Industry-Specific Transformations
Legal Profession: AI handles document review, contract analysis, and legal research, unbundling analytical work from legal judgment
Content Creation: Netflix generates $1 billion yearly revenue from AI-powered automated and personalized officer recommendations
Scientific Research: Partners at the Asteroid Institute use Google's AI technologies to compress 130 years of research into just three months
The Counter-Current: Opportunities for Re-bundling
Human Adaptation Strategies
While AI unbundles traditional capabilities, humans can respond through conscious re-bundling:
Enhanced Human-AI Collaboration: Combining human creativity with AI efficiency New Artisan Movements: Emphasizing uniquely human qualities like consciousness and emotional depth Ethical Leadership: Providing moral guidance for AI development and deployment
Practical Steps for Professionals
- Develop AI Literacy: Understand capabilities and limitations of current systems
- Focus on Human-Centric Skills: Empathy, ethical reasoning, and complex problem-solving
- Embrace Augmentation: Use AI tools to enhance rather than replace human capabilities
- Stay Adaptable: Prepare for continued technological evolution
The Future Landscape: What's Next for AI
Emerging Trends for 2025 and Beyond
Generative virtual worlds and AI reasoning models that work through answers step by step will reshape entertainment and problem-solving. Companies will shift focus from experimenting with AI to optimizing its performance and maximizing its value.
The Philosophical Challenge
As Sterling argues in "The Great Unbundling," we face a fundamental question: What happens to human purpose when our bundled capabilities lose competitive advantage? The answer may lie not in resisting unbundling but in consciously creating new forms of human value.
Conclusion: Embracing the Unbundled Future
Artificial intelligence today represents more than technological advancement—it's a civilizational shift requiring new frameworks for understanding human value. While AI systems excel at isolated tasks, humans possess something machines cannot replicate: the integrated experience of consciousness, emotion, and purpose.
The key to thriving in this unbundled world lies in recognizing both AI's extraordinary capabilities and its fundamental limitations. By understanding "The Great Unbundling" framework, we can navigate this transformation thoughtfully, ensuring that technological progress serves human flourishing rather than replacing it.
As we stand at this inflection point, the question isn't whether AI will continue advancing—it will. The question is how we'll adapt, re-bundle our uniquely human capabilities, and create new sources of meaning and value in an AI-enhanced world.
Ready to explore the deeper implications of AI's impact on human value? Discover J.Y. Sterling's comprehensive analysis in "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being" and join the conversation about humanity's future in an AI-driven world.
Stay informed about the latest developments in AI and human-technology interaction by subscribing to our newsletter for exclusive insights and analysis at JYSterling.com.