Happy(ish) AI Appreciation Day
Why some of us celebrated the fifth annual ritual this Wednesday and some of us didn’t.
Remember EVE?
Me neither. The obscure cinematic exercise in AI doomerism came and went quickly, leaving little behind except a clever marketing gimmick—the first AI Appreciation Day.
That took place on July 16, 2021, and other than some unclaimed merch little of that landmark remains. Yet four years later, thanks less to movie magic than the $644 billion market brought into being the following year by ChatGPT, AI Appreciation Day lives on.
Given that they wouldn’t exist without AI, I’m guessing the folks at both Thread and InfiltrateIQ joined in this year’s celebrations two days ago. Hard to know for sure, though, who else had cause to join them.
People on the receiving end of the roughly $70 billion investors have poured into AI vendors just in the first half of 2025 (up from $58.7 billion for all of last year) probably celebrated. All the non-AI vendors crowded out of the venture capital market probably didn’t.
Software makers producing code faster? Appreciative. Software makers who only think they’re producing code faster? Maybe more appreciative than they should be.
SOC operators like N-able, which has amplified manual threat hunting capabilities 153x thanks to AI, no doubt raised a glass in appreciation. SOC analysts like the security professionals Bitdefender surveyed last year probably didn’t, given that 96% of them consider overreliance on AI for security purposes a potential threat. Same goes for the security pros ISC2 polled more recently.
The nearly 85 million people globally who’ll lose a job this year due to AI per a recent study probably didn’t celebrate, especially if they were replaced by the AI they helped code. The 97 million people who’ll gain a job due to AI this year per the same study probably did (especially if the gig came with a nine-figure contract).
The many people getting more done and making more money with AI’s help were undoubtedly pretty appreciative. The many others who are burned out, bored, sinking into cognitive debt, and losing their critical thinking skills would probably be less appreciative if they still had the brain power to care.
Businesses set to cash in on a massive forthcoming wave of data center construction by Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many others? Appreciative. People who live next door to an AI data center? Less so.
MSPs enjoying 40% labor savings and 75% cost savings using AI? Appreciative. MSPs at risk of seeing their top and bottom lines drop 15% because they failed to keep up with AI? Apprehensive.
Managers anticipating a 30% per employee boost from agentic AI? Celebratory. Managers behind one of the many agentic AI projects doomed to failure in the next two years? Not so much.
People worried about debt and deficits? Appreciative. People with a high p(doom), like these guys? Maybe not.
And yours truly? Pretty appreciative given all the storylines AI has sent my way, not to mention the speaking opportunities. See you at MSP Summit in September!
Speaking of AI…
We talk about it a lot on MSP Chat, the podcast I co-host, with c-suite executives from N-able, Pax8, Sophos, and beyond. Security too. The latest episode features a deep dive into interesting new research from Barracuda and its implications for achieving growth in managed services.
