From Marvel to Mundane: Disappearing Innovation
These days, innovation vanishes into the background faster than ever. To stay ahead, explore the 4 stages of innovation evolution—and get ready for what’s next.
This audio was recorded by AI:
I find there’s a strange kind of magic in watching technology fade.
Once upon a time, the microwave oven was a Space Age marvel. It changed not just how we heated leftovers but how we lived—dismantling family mealtimes, slashing housework hours, and ultimately helping millions of women enter the workforce. But today? The microwave doesn’t spark wonder. It’s background noise. A button you press without thinking. Its revolutionary imprint is invisible.
That’s the final stage in a four-part model of innovation evolution: from marvel to mundane. First comes technological determinism, where a new tool makes something easier—think reheating a meal in seconds. Then, unintended consequences: family dinners vanish, mealtimes go solo, schedules decentralize. Next, society restructures around the new norm: gender roles shift, supply chains evolve, expectations recalibrate. Finally, domestication: the extraordinary becomes ordinary. The tool disappears into the fabric of life.
We’re now watching this cycle unfold—again and again—at an accelerating pace.
The Internet Did It, Too
The internet has already completed this four-stage transformation. It started as a novelty that delivered information faster. Then came e-commerce. Then Amazon. Then the collapse of traditional retail and the rise of personalization algorithms. Now? No one “gets online.” We are online. Constantly. The innovation faded, but it left a reshaped world in its wake.
Here’s the kicker: this cycle is no longer a multi-decade affair. It’s speeding up. Technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT, smart spaces, and next-gen automation are hurtling through these stages faster than ever. We don’t have the luxury of waiting decades to figure out the consequences. Strategists must now operate at the pace of transformation.
So how do you build strategy in a world that refuses to stand still? Let’s explore each stage to better understand and prepare for the unstoppable innovation evolution cycle.
1. Technological Determinism
Every new tool simplifies the obvious—but its real power lies in the unexpected things it makes easier. That’s the real meaning of technological determinism.
The microwave didn’t speed up all cooking; it made heating individual meals easier. It wasn’t much help with roasting a turkey or prepare a family feast for six. But it helped reheat one plate of food in 45 seconds. This changed users’ calculus. Families started drifting apart at dinner time—not because people stopped caring, but because the tool incentivized solo meals.
In this first stage, the technology subtly tilts the balance.
2. Unintended Consequences
Then come the ripple effects—the second-order, unintended and unexpected changes. When microwaves and washing machines began to save hours of domestic labor every week, the consequences weren’t just cleaner clothes and faster meals. Schedules loosened. The average household went from spending 40 hours a week on chores to just 18. Family routines began to dissolve.
More profoundly, homemaking no longer needed to be a full-time job. Suddenly, women had time to dedicate to other things. This wasn’t just about convenience—it was structural. Many people assume women joined the workforce because society became more accepting. However, the causality went the other way: once domestic tools freed up hours of unpaid labor, women could work—and did. Society’s views had to catch up.
Cultural change follows practical change.
3. Social Restructuring
At this stage, the new reality becomes the default. Supply chains adapt. Retail adjusts. Urban planning, transportation, and social norms all reorient around the changed behavior. Consider the microwave again: soon, frozen meals skyrocketed. Grocery stores restructured entire aisles. Manufacturers redesigned kitchens around compact appliances. And suddenly, solo eating wasn’t strange—it was expected. By the late 1970s, microwaves had become mainstream, transforming not just how we cooked, but how we lived.
Women’s workforce participation mirrored this path and soared from 15% to 40% by the 1980s. This social shift reshaped American life in profound ways. It fueled the creation of after-school programs, drove policies like maternity leave and the Equal Pay Act, pushed PTA meetings into evening hours, expanded public transit routes, and transformed how women were portrayed in media—ushering in iconic shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and One Day at a Time.
The resulting flywheel—greater demand leading to greater investment and innovation in time-saving appliances, thus unlocking more demand—drove the average cost of appliances down significantly from 1940 to 1980. Just as with the internet, the change in social infrastructure didn’t just respond to the tool. It accelerated and cemented its dominance.
4. Domestication
Finally, the innovation fades from view. It becomes invisible. The microwave is no longer a talking point; it’s a utility. The internet is no longer a novelty; it’s the oxygen of modern life. This is domestication—the point where a once-exciting breakthrough becomes assumed. Background. Mundane. The transformation now complete, life before fades from memory.
A Faster Future
Today this four-stage cycle is happening again—only now, it’s faster. With AI, blockchain, and automation, we’re sprinting from marvel to mundane in a matter of years, not decades. The implications? Strategists, policy makers, and business leaders must grapple with consequences we can’t yet see. We must anticipate ripple effects, not just react to surface-level functions.
Focus on downstream consequences, not just immediate capabilities.
From Tools to Tectonic Shifts
A washing machine once saved six hours and 20 gallons of water per load. That was enough to help liberate an entire generation of women from domestic labor, shifting workforce demographics, family structures, and legislation.
Today, we stand at the edge of a similar moment. If AI can reclaim six hours of mental effort per week from 100 million workers, we are not just looking at increased productivity. We are seeing a complete reordering of how society works, organizes, learns, governs, and creates value. The stakes aren’t just high—they’re historical.
I believe we are really only halfway through phase one of this journey. We are figuring out the first-order implications of AI and related technologies. For strategists who want to seize the full opportunity of the coming transformation, the key is recognizing that innovation isn’t just about new capabilities—it’s about new conditions. We often plan around first-order benefits: efficiency, speed, convenience. But that mindset misses the tectonic shifts that ripple beyond.
True disruption doesn’t happen at the point of innovation, but in its aftershocks—the surprising realization of second-order consequences and the slow unraveling of old industries, the quiet rewriting of social norms, and the rise of new professions that become pillars of the economy.
To prepare for this kind of transformation, leaders must build adaptive systems. This means investing in educational tools that teach problem framing, not just problem solving. It means cultivating a culture that doesn’t just chase innovation’s promises—but invites its unexpected consequences.
As AI accelerates into every corner of life, the most important insights won’t come from what it does—but from what it unlocks. To prepare for what’s coming, start by asking the questions that matter most:
What will AI and related technologies definitely improve—faster processes, lower costs, greater efficiency?
What are the aspects of work, life, and meaning that AI won’t touch or replace?
How might these shifts tip the balance of how we make decisions, set priorities, or define value?
What new behaviors or unexpected opportunities could emerge from that rebalanced equation?
What ripple effects—social, legal, cultural—might follow those behavioral changes?
As society adapts (laws, norms, cities, media, family life, and work), what shape will that transformation take?
And finally: when the tech fades into the background, what does the new “normal” look like—and where do you fit within it?
The tools we marvel at today may soon disappear into the background. But the futures they unlock are just beginning to unfold. It’s time to step forward, think deeper, and help define what comes after the next phenomenon fades
For more insight into the innovation evolution cycle, accelerated business adaptation and societal transformation, visit Outthinker.com.