Was 2025 the “Death of the Generalist AI”?

The "Death of Generalist AI" refers to the end of the one-size-fits-all era. In its place, Small Language Models (SLMs) and Domain-Specific AI have emerged as the industry's workhorses. These models are trained on curated, high-fidelity data for specific sectors like law, healthcare, and finance, allowing them to outperform general models in accuracy and reliability within those niches. By running locally on hardware or on-premise servers, they prioritize privacy (data remains on-device), speed (zero cloud latency), and cost-efficiency.