AI-washing

AI-washing is sticking the “AI” label on conventional, deterministic software because AI is what buyers and investors want to hear. It stopped being a marketing foul and became a legal one in March 2024, when the SEC fined investment adviser Delphia for marketing machine-learning capabilities it didn’t have — establishing that dressing up a plain algorithm as AI can be securities fraud under existing law.

Why it matters: The buyer’s defense costs nothing and almost nobody uses it: ask, of any pitch, the most deflating question in the room — what is this actually doing? A system that runs the same way every time on the same triggers is automation, worth automation prices, whatever the sticker says. The existence of a coined term for the practice tells you how routine it is; you don’t get a snappy name for a thing that happens twice.