Right now, using AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude feels more awkward than it should. Every time you want to start a new task, you’re pushed into creating a new chat or thread, and then you’re left hoping the AI somehow remembers context from a previous conversation. Most of the time, it doesn’t. That’s not because the AI is “dumb,” but because the underlying system simply can’t carry everything forward forever.
The root of the problem is the context window. AI models can only “see” a limited amount of conversation at once. If you keep chatting endlessly, the system has to resend more and more text back to the servers every time you say something. That costs real money in compute and bandwidth. From the companies’ perspective, forcing new chats is a practical way to keep costs under control, even if it’s annoying for users.
This is also why so many current features—projects, custom GPTs, system prompts, memory tools—feel like they’re designed for power users or developers. It’s very similar to the early internet days. Back then, using the web meant dealing with clunky browsers, strange interfaces, and search engines like Mosaic or Lycos that required patience and technical curiosity. Normal people eventually came along, but not until the tooling matured.
We’re still in that early phase with AI. Even in late 2025, it’s only been a few years since these systems landed in the hands of the general public. What we’re using today is not the final form—it’s more like a prototype of what’s coming.
Long term, this whole “new chat, new thread” model is going to disappear. Instead of juggling conversations, everyone will likely have a single AI—more like a general contractor than a chatbot. You’ll talk to it continuously, mostly through voice. It will remember you, understand long-term context, and pull up information only when it needs to. It’ll edit things, fetch data, contact other people, or delegate tasks to other systems on your behalf.
When context windows become effectively infinite—or at least feel that way—the experience will stop being fragmented. Conversations will be ongoing and natural, not boxed into threads. What feels clunky and technical today will eventually feel invisible. And when that happens, AI won’t feel like a tool you “use” anymore—it’ll feel like something that’s just there, working quietly in the background of your life.