It feels like barely a week passes without a new AI tool grabbing headlines. But beneath the flashy image generators and chatbots, a quieter yet more transformative development is taking place: AI systems are learning to reason.

This isn't just an incremental improvement—it represents a paradigm shift in how artificial intelligence approaches problems and interacts with humans.1 Recent breakthroughs from OpenAI and Google DeepMind are pushing these capabilities beyond what many thought possible just months ago, with implications that extend far beyond tech enthusiasts.