I have also been exposed and speculative to a number of AI projects in this space, and what I am sensing is that the hype is more about the overused term than the product being developed. A few are really serious about AI, the rest are just sticking to trends to attract the community's attention. Actually, for me there aren't too many names that leave an impression, but I quite like FET, TAO ,... and some quite smallscale projects.
IMO, AI is a huge opportunity, but always be wary because the hype will always be there. I can imagine that in the next few years AI will really come into life in a popular way and then we will truly witness clear changes. Like @Husires, I very much agree with that, many projects are just exposing deception and have no core essence.