AI is Becoming Infrastructure. Are You Treating It That Way?

Aug 8

Q: Would your business survive without electricity?

Of course not.
Electricity is non-negotiable. Without it, you're done. No lights. No servers. No coffee. Game over.

Now — how often does electricity actually go down?

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2023 the average American experienced just 2.4 hours of power outages across the whole year. That’s a 99.97% uptime rate.

So pretty dang reliable.

Q: What about the internet?

Let’s call it the second layer of critical infrastructure.
You can have power, but if your Wi-Fi is dead, good luck processing payments, checking email, or accessing your CRM.

Internet reliability is slightly worse than electricity, but still solid. According to the Uptime Institute, global network outages affected just 8% of organizations in 2023, and most were resolved within a few hours.

So again — reliable, but not bulletproof.

Q: Now here comes AI… marching into mission-critical territory

Until recently, AI tools were “nice to have.”
They helped with emails, brainstormed ideas, maybe wrote some social media captions.

But now? AI is starting to replace actual systems in workflows.

Content production is built around ChatGPT
Customer service relies on AI agents
Data analysis is delegated to LLMs
Internal knowledge bases are being replaced with AI assistants

And that’s awesome — until it’s not.

Because just this week, ChatGPT went down.
And there I was, staring at my screen thinking: Welp. So much for this project getting done today.

Q: So what’s the uptime for AI tools like ChatGPT?

OpenAI doesn't publish exact uptime statistics, but based on public tracking (e.g., OpenAI’s Status Page), GPT-4 had multiple hours of downtime or degraded performance across several days this month alone.

TL;DR: AI currently has more downtime than electricity. More than internet.
And yet… we’re building it directly into our business infrastructure.

Let that sink in.

Q: So what’s the takeaway here?

AI tools are starting to feel like infrastructure — but we’re not treating them like infrastructure.

With electricity, we install backup generators.
With internet, we have mobile hotspots or secondary ISPs.
With ERP systems, some companies keep private servers on-site.

But with AI?
Most teams are flying without a net.
No plan B. No offline process. No fallback.

And that’s dangerous.

Q: Should I stop automating critical processes with AI?

Not at all.
AI is wildly powerful, and for many tasks, the efficiency gains are worth the risk.

But you need to start asking questions like:

Is this a critical process?
What happens if this AI tool goes down?
Do I have a backup plan or offline method?
Can this task wait — or is it time-sensitive?
Do my team members know how to function if AI isn’t available?

If AI is supporting nice-to-haves, fine.
But if it’s now the engine behind client deliverables, operations, or revenue-generating work — treat it accordingly.

Final Thought: AI Isn’t Just a Tool Anymore — It’s an Assumption

We’ve crossed a line.

AI tools aren’t just helping us do work — they’re becoming a prerequisite for starting work at all. And if that’s the case, we need to start managing them with the same care we give to our power grid and internet connection.

Because when the lights go out, you light a candle.
When the Wi-Fi goes down, you tether to your phone.
When ChatGPT is offline… what’s your move?

💡 Want to design smarter AI workflows (that don’t fall apart when GPT takes a nap)?
Join the Maadii Membership — prompt libraries, process playbooks, and strategies for building AI into your business without losing your mind when it crashes.

Kim Costa is very good at writing