Invisible AI flood in consumer UX

Progress in 2025 pushed generative models to production quality so fast that 2026 will be marked not by dramatic daily disruptions but by a near‑complete invisible integration of AI into interfaces: images, drafting, search summaries, and recommendation layers will be materially better and more pervasive while most people report their day‑to‑day life is 'basically the same.' Policymakers and platforms should therefore prepare for governance problems that arise from widespread, low‑visibility AI deployment (consent, provenance, liability) rather than only from headline releases. — If AI becomes ubiquitous yet subjectively invisible, regulation and public debate must shift from reacting to breakthrough launches to auditing embedded, default‑on systems that quietly alter information, labor, and privacy.