THE concept of 'The Paradox of Choice,' introduced by psychologist Barry Schwartz, highlights the counterintuitive phenomenon where an abundance of options can lead to anxiety, paralysis and dissatisfaction. This paradox has become increasingly relevant in the digital age, manifesting in various online domains. From the myriad of search engines in the early internet days to the overwhelming number of travel booking sites, the struggle to make optimal choices without succumbing to decision fatigue has been a recurring challenge. Today, we face a new iteration of this paradox in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), where an explosion of AI applications is both a boon and a burden.

In the late '90s and early 2000s, internet users were inundated with a plethora of search engines like Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo, and AskJeeves. While having numerous options initially felt empowering, it soon became a source of frustration. Users found themselves cross-checking multiple search engines to ensure they had the best information, leading to excessive time spent on simple queries. Eventually, Google's emergence as a dominant, reliable search engine alleviated this pain, streamlining the search process and effectively becoming the dominant search engine.