Overall, I am curious how much all of this actually works or does not work. For me, everything related to AI still feels like fairly raw software and platforms where human involvement is still required, and it feels less like real automation and more like a kind of self-deception. Do you not think so?

I share your skepticism. Most AI products are genuinely pretty raw, and expectations around them and their effectiveness are often inflated. But if you treat them as helpers rather than a magic button, there is still value there. I would not call it self-deception. In business, there are often a lot of routine tasks that simply do not need to be done manually. But yes, some bigger tasks will still be on you.

It depends on what you personally expect from AI and tools built on it. For me it is something that helps set up routine tasks and, importantly, achieve consistency in them. I am currently working with https://skrooge.ai/ . In this format AI starts working for the business and becomes something like an assistant. With a subscription it costs me less than when I used to hire a freelancer to prepare documents and reports. At the same time, everything is in order every day, and I can easily find any data in the system at any moment.