This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how this "AI boom" compares to the dot-com era. It feels similar in some ways - the buzz, the gold rush energy, the flood of new products all claiming to "change everything."

Ask me sometime about what it was like back then. Getting six-figure job offers by email without even interviewing. Recruiters tossing in sports cars as signing bonuses. It was a wild, ridiculous time to be in tech.

But there's one big difference between then and now, and only a few of us seem to be talking about it.

Back Then, the Web Had One Goal: Sell Stuff

During the dot-com boom, everyone was trying to figure out one thing - how to sell online. That was the playbook. Build a website, add a shopping cart, raise a few million, and hope customers showed up.

Oh yeah - and back then it was all about acquiring customers, no matter the cost. Even if that meant losing money on every sale.

The web was an immature distribution channel. It changed where we sold, but not what we sold or how we operated. It was revolutionary, yes - but in a very narrow way.

Now, AI Is Everywhere and in Everything

What makes this moment different is that AI isn't being applied to one thing. It's being applied to everything.

People are using it to edit photos, generate resumes, summarize meetings, design websites, write code, and even create fake bands and songs. Some of it's amazing, some of it's ridiculous - and a lot of it is somewhere in between.

AI is good at some things, terrible at others, and absolutely great at a few - and it's getting better fast.

But there's one area where it's already genuinely world-class: financial analysis.

Why Finance Is AI's Sweet Spot

Financial data is structured, rule-driven, and constantly validated - three things AI thrives on. When you combine that with ERP systems like NetSuite, you suddenly have the perfect environment for AI to deliver real, reliable insight.

That's because ERP data isn't "garbage data." It's not scraped from the internet or stitched together from ten spreadsheets. It's the operational truth of a business: transactions, ledgers, reconciliations, budgets, forecasts - all connected, all time-stamped, all verifiable.

Give an AI access to that kind of data, and it can do incredible things. It can analyze trends, flag anomalies, predict cash flow issues, and even explain financial movements in plain language. It's like giving a calculator the ability to reason - and to write the commentary for the board packet while it's at it.

AI That Actually Works

This is what I find so exciting about AI in the context of ERP systems. While much of the AI world is still chasing novelty - avatars, chatbots, image filters - the finance side is already seeing tangible, practical results. And real ROI as well.

When we use AI with NetSuite data, we're not experimenting. We're automating real analysis, generating commentary that used to take hours, and giving decision-makers insights they can act on today - not next quarter.

The web connected buyers and sellers. AI connects data and decisions.

That's a much bigger shift.

Where We Go From Here

So yes - this era does feel a lot like the dot-com boom: too much hype, too many startups, too many "AI-powered" products solving problems that don't exist. But this time, the underlying technology is already producing real value — you just need to know where to look to see it.

We don't need to wait for the "AI infrastructure" to mature. It's already here. The real challenge is applying it in ways that actually make a difference.