You're experiencing firsthand what's to be in the process of company enshittification.
What I can deduce is that the company (as PG would put it) probably is "default dead" if it needs so many investment rounds.
Since the first seed round, the company has been subject to investors' whim. Exit early, go very fast and see what sticks.
> The argument seems to be that they've realized the only way to achieve the next round of funding is to be "AI-first".
And what investors want is to jump on the wagon, regardless.
I don't despise AI; in fact, I love it. The idea of MCPs got me hooked up hard on it, now I'm the solutions guy looking for a problem.
The issue here is: irresponsible AI adoption (or any emergent technology for that matter, e.g., blockchain, VR, etc) will break companies.
I'm all in for AI, but implement it where it adds the most value and cascade with it to the next area it adds value until its implementation hits a diminishing returns ROI.
> I'm not well-informed enough to know if this is the correct approach to scaling. Instead of working on useful, in-demand product features, it feels like we're spending a lot of time looking at a distant future that we'll struggle to reach if we take our eye off of the ball.
Your internal compass is pointing at the right north star...
> Is this normal? Are other organizations going through the same struggle? For the first time in five years I feel completely out of my depth.
But unfortunately, this is becoming more of the norm, we can't help ourselves. This is what market meltdowns and market corrections look like months before they happen.