>So why is AI getting so much attention when it seems that there is limited actual demand for it?

He skips the main reason which is it will get better in the future. Today chatbots, tomorrow I, Robot/Terminator/Her/AI/The Matrix etc. Or better as the movies tend to be biased towards disaster.

Incidentally there aren't really movies about future crypto/NFT/dotcom bubbles. AI and robots are different.