I only started using Cosmic when Pop_OS! 24.04 came out so I never touched it before it was a stable release so I have no opinions before that. My initial impressions were that it was good enough to try as a daily driver because the things that were missing, like accessibility options, weren't things I personally needed. Did it need work, yes. Is it a disaster of a DE, No.
When it comes to the AI issue, I'm a bit torn. I think AI can be a great tool for development. The problem is having the opportunity for some slop kiddies to constantly throw a program into chaos because they put Hermes into YOLO mode. A "No AI"policy is a way to prevent problems but I don't think it's necessarily a perfect one.