By July 2023, ChatGPT had crossed an important threshold: it was no longer a curiosity. The initial frenzy of “look what it can do” had settled into a quieter, more consequential phase—integration. Students were using it routinely. Developers were building with it. Managers were quietly experimenting, even if official policy lagged behind.
This was the month when AI stopped being a demo and started becoming invisible infrastructure. People no longer announced they were using ChatGPT; they simply used it. The questions shifted from “Can it do this?” to “How do I fit this into my workflow without breaking things?”
July felt like the beginning of normalization—and normalization is always more disruptive than hype.