https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
by definition if you are at the beginning you are in a tiny minority and will be struggling to explain what you're up to. You're describing the experience of people up at the top of the curve who are not innovators at all -- trouble is there is so much talk about innovation from people who are just following the herd these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky
who knew that man would set foot on the moon based on some assumptions about conservation of momentum and the kinetic theory of gases.
Myself I was involved in several projects in the 2010s, both working for other people and myself, that were going in the direction of today's chatbots. The technology was not ready!
I thought this talk was up to the minute when I gave it
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/chatbots-in-2017-ithaca...
and three years later felt time had passed it by, and today it seems prophetic.
I remember being very impressed back then by their chat bots, how conversational they were, even though now it’s obsoleted by LLMs.