Every AI trend follows the same arc. Here's what comes next |
Every AI trend follows the same arc. Here's what comes next
Every AI trend peaks fast and burns out faster. The pattern behind four years of hype explains what comes next
Zulfugar Karimov / Unsplash
In March 2023, Anthropic posted a job listing for a "prompt engineer and librarian" with a salary range of $175,000 to $335,000. The role required no traditional engineering degree. The candidate needed a "hacker spirit" and a talent for coaxing useful answers from large language models.
It didn't last. Job searches for the title on Indeed spiked from 2 per million U.S. searches in January 2023 to 144 per million by April 2023, then fell back to 20 to 30 per million, according the Wall Street Journal. That full cycle — from gold rush to near-obsolescence — took about 24 months.
The story of prompt engineering is also the story of AI slop, vibe coding, and tokenmaxxing. Each arrived as a phenomenon, peaked, and left behind a smaller, more durable practice. The pattern is worth understanding, because the next wave is already here.
The democratization of AI and its side effects
Prompt engineering entered public consciousness as a genuine career category in early 2023, weeks after ChatGPT's release made large language models a household curiosity. Companies treated the ability to write effective instructions for AI as a scarce and valuable skill. Median salaries at top firms reached $296,000 at Meta $META and........