New technologies pass through inflated expectations, disillusionment, and then productive use.
Gartner's framing rather than an empirically validated curve — the shape is asserted, not measured. Its practical use is as a vocabulary for arguing about where a technology sits, not as a forecast.
In practice
- A board hears the same technology described as transformative in one quarter's papers and as a distraction eighteen months later, with no new evidence in between.
- A procurement team that waits out the loud period buys the mature version at a third of the price and none of the risk.
- Standing
- Widely used framing rather than an empirically validated curve.
- Subject
- Technology & Software
- Essay
- How technologies spread, scale, decay and frighten us