Your example is another one that illustrates my point. When they invented the microscope, they could instantly demonstrate its utility in it’s ability to observe previously invisibly tiny things. The following inventions that enabled are great, but the microscope itself was great, too, and all could see why.
AI is almost all hype. When anyone asks what it can do that was impossible or too difficult before, people point to what they think it will do, yourself included.
So, again, what previously intractable problem does AI solve? Please do not include answers of problems you think it might one day solve. Like the microscope can immediately let you see tiny things, what does the AI let you do that was impossible before? Bonus points if what it does is worth spending a planet’s worth of resources on.