Recently, Gartner released another version of its Hype Cycle, and it’s nothing new. Each year, this research and advisory firm creates over 100 of these cycles across various fields. However, it looks like the Hype Cycle is going through its own Trough of Disillusionment.

Each emerging technology is different and takes its own separate path to get adopted among the masses. Take the example of ChatGPT, it clearly broke the AI hype cycle within three months of the launch. According to Gartner, it was supposed to take a minimum of 2 years to reach the ‘plateau’. This new report seems to be no different.

There is no doubt that over the years, the report has helped business leaders and its clients to get a fair amount of idea how much time a new emergent technology will take to eventually reach the ‘Plateau of Productivity’. In simpler terms, this is when the technology sees widespread adoption and achieves its full potential. 

Missing the gold

To start with, one cannot simply ignore that almost every single truly transformative technology wasn’t ever tracked by Gartner including the WiFi, GPS chips, the App Store, Web2.0, API’s etc. It’s quite remarkable how many significant technologies from the past two decades weren’t recognised early or never made it onto a Hype Cycle. In the world of technology, things that may appear minor or short-lived often end up forming the basis for the next generation of business and consumer tools.

Taking a closer look at Gartner’s different graph versions over the years shows that certain technologies vanish in later editions, seemingly replaced by new ones. As an example, “Smartphone” made its appearance on the “Slope of Enlightenment” in 2006 without a clear journey through the “Peak of Inflated Expectations.”

The story doesn’t stop here. The Gartner Hype Cycle missed out on notable technologies like NoSQL, which started gaining traction in the mid-2000s, giving us innovations like MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, and Couchbase.

Considering this, it would not be wrong to say that the level of hype Gartner and its associates are trying to generate for a technology, represents the extent to which their consultants are pushing clients towards certain tech, while ignoring the real advancements.

Times When the Hype Cycle Got it Wrong

Gartner on Zero Knowledge Proof in 2022 said that the technology will take 5 to 10 years for mainstream adoption. However, Worldcoin, which was recently launched  based on ZKP, saw major adoption around the world. According to the recent reports, Worldcoin, has secured more than 9,500 Argentine users within a day in August, 2023. 

As of now more than 2 million people around the world have sat in front of Worldcoin orbs to have their irises scanned, from Chile to Indonesia to Kenya. The number is clearly higher than the cycle expected.

Similarly for Code generation, a period of five to ten years was predicted. Today, we have a plethora of options to choose from for code generation, such as Code Llama, Code Whisper, Codex and Codey. Clearly Gartner got it wrong. 

Furthermore, In 2022, Gartner predicted that the Metaverse would need more than 10 years to realise its full potential. Yet, earlier this year, there was a growing sentiment that the Metaverse is dead. However, in the case of Metaverse, it would be interesting to observe if it is currently in its ‘trough of disillusionment’ phase or if it is really dead. 

Hype Cycle is not Science 

Many technologies simply fade away with time or die. According to Mullany, an additional 20% of all technologies that were tracked for multiple years on the Hype Cycle became obsolete before reaching any kind of mainstream success.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is not science, but Gartner presents it as an established natural law. Expressing similar sentiments, a user on Hacker News wrote “Why do people think the Gartner hype cycle is a law of physics?”. The Gartner Hype Cycle lacks empirical backing and fails to consider technologies that deviate from its prescribed path.

Hype Cycle might be useful for investors in some cases as it gives them an estimate of time period for when a tech will mature, but blindly following it without taking into consideration other factors and sources of information can lead to wrong decisions, because Gartner can conveniently change the hype next year to fix their mistakes.

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