I find it interesting how a lot of cyberpunk does not really include AI or does not present it in transformative way. There is a lot of mind uploading, implants, corpo fun and overall technology permeating all aspects of life, but often AI itself does not actually play a big role.

Counterexamples that come to mind are Neuromancer (AI driving the plot) and Blade Runner (AI antagonists.)

A compromise thesis might be that in cyberpunk media, AI is at never powerful or motivated to fundamentally reform the worldwide crapsack economic system. They don't abolish corporations, although they might take them over.

Of course, if there was a story about an AI taking over the world into a post-scarcity society, it probably wouldn't be filed under "cyberpunk" either...

It is a pretty core part of Cyberpunk the "franchise" though, both tabletop and more recent video game.

I think as well if you look closer, many cyberpunk worlds imply AI through robots, computers with personality etc.

I think you can look at Star Trek as a fairly grounded example of where current LLMs could go: the ship's computer is not autonomous in any way but it does accept fairly vague instructions and you can apparently vibe-code the holodeck.

I find that more realistic then, because it appears that's the trajectory we are going on with regards to AI, as a tool not a panacea.

Deus Ex is an outlier, AI is a core part of that plot