The Gartner Hype Cycle has become a widely used industry tool to assess the maturity and potential adoption of emerging technologies. As this model has a prominent influence on investor decision making, an in-depth systematic review of it is necessary. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and analyse Gartner’s Hype Cycle. In doing so, the objective is to describe how the model is analysed in various sources of literature and then assess the continued relevance of the model as a question is raised: Does Gartner’s Hype Cycle theory match practice? By conducting a systematic review of multiple articles, a differing view of the Hype Cycle in academic literature was observed in comparison to industry sentiment. The results of this review indicate that there are multiple inconsistencies with the current Hype Cycle implementation. Various factors limit the overall applicability of the model; methodological flaws, information gathering flaws, and oversimplification of complex phenomena make up some of these limitations. Notwithstanding these flaws, some benefits of the model are also discussed. Finally, some future recommendations are illustrated, highlighting the need for an empirically attested mathematical representation of the model. Finally, some future recommendations are illustrated, highlighting the need for an empirically attested mathematical representation of the model.