Near AGI
For the past two years, AI moved at a speed that felt unreal. New models appeared one after another. Hundreds of millions of people started using them almost overnight. It created the impression that we were rushing straight toward artificial general intelligence. As if AGI was just one more release away.
Then something changed.
The pace flattened. New models still arrive, but the leaps feel smaller. Improvements feel incremental rather than revolutionary. The sense of constant shock has faded. And this might not be a failure. It might be a transition.
We may have entered the age of Near AGI.
Near AGI is not a destination. It is a long plateau. A phase where systems are powerful, flexible, and useful across many domains, but not truly general in the human sense. They will keep improving, but not at the explosive rate we saw at the beginning. Progress now looks more like refinement than discovery.
This pattern should feel familiar.
Human intelligence did not appear in a single jump. It emerged through millions of years of slow, uneven evolution. Our brains were shaped by survival, environment, culture, and time. Recreating that process is not just a technical challenge. It is a biological one we barely understand.
So instead of expecting sudden breakthroughs, we should expect patience. AI will continue to mimic intelligence well enough to transform work, creativity, and daily life. But mimicking is not the same as becoming. Understanding the brain deeply enough to replicate it is a much longer journey.
Near AGI is not the end of progress. It is the moment where speed gives way to depth. And depth, by its nature, cannot be rushed.