AI Washing: Lifted by AI Hype, What is Real and What is Hype?
What is Real in AI Right Now?
Have you heard of the term AI washing? AI washing is when organizations try to connect with the trend around AI to feel cool or exaggerate their existing product direction.
“There is a lot of hype and a lot of confusion around AI right now,” said Alex Liu, a principal analyst at the research firm Gartner. “Companies are capitalizing on that hype to make their products sound more advanced than they really are.”
One striking example is the AI-powered home assistant marketed by the startup Athena. The company’s website boasts of an “intelligent conversational agent” that can understand natural language and provide customized recommendations. However, an investigation by this reporter found that the assistant’s capabilities are actually quite limited — it relies on simple pattern matching and cannot engage in substantive dialogue or reasoning.
“Athena is essentially just doing keyword matching and script-based responses, but they’re presenting it as if it’s true AI,” said Samantha Chen, a machine learning engineer who reviewed the product. “That’s classic AI washing.”
Similar instances abound across various industries. The recruitment platform Jobify claims its “AI-driven applicant screening” can identify top candidates, when in reality its algorithms merely scan resumes for keyword matches. Cloud storage provider Storex touts “intelligent data management powered by AI,” yet its AI functionality is limited to basic file organization.
The AI washing trend is worrying to experts who believe that it could undermine trust in real AI innovations. “When companies exaggerate their AI capabilities, it creates unrealistic expectations and can lead to disillusionment down the line,” said Dr. Raj Kumar, director of the AI Ethics Institute.
Regulators have also taken notice. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued guidance warning companies against making deceptive or unsubstantiated claims about their use of AI. Some jurisdictions, such as the European Union, are considering stricter regulations to combat AI washing and ensure transparency.
However, there are companies that are pushing the frontiers in tech capabilities. Most of these companies have spent billions of dollars in R&D costs and many years of research to build their AI hardware products. Meta unveiled AI glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban that have many audio, visual, and speech capabilities which could unlock a new wave of consumer interfaces. OpenAI and other players such as Perplexity have pushed the boundaries to train LLMs and revolutionize search.
Some of this does not come without criticism, though. The Human AI Pin and Rabbit R1 are new categories of AI hardware that could shape how we interact with AI, but they’ve so far fallen below expectations. Some critics have said all the capabilities of these two new pieces of hardware could be mobile apps instead, and the internet’s biggest tech reviewer, MKBHD, shared scathing criticism when reviewing these products.
Yet the temptation to leverage AI hype remains strong, as businesses seek to gain a competitive edge and attract investment. Experts say the onus is on consumers and enterprise customers to be more discerning, to scrutinize marketing claims, and to demand clear evidence of AI capabilities.
“AI is a profoundly powerful technology with immense potential, but it’s also complex and nuanced,” said Liu. “Companies need to be held accountable for how they represent it to the public. Anything less is a disservice to innovation and to those who will rely on these technologies.”
Is AI washing feeding into the AI hype or detracting from it? AI hype is real; even established companies like Google have played the AI hype card in their past product launches, like Duplex — (story link on Duplex). This was five years ago. Today we see companies like Humane Pin getting backlash on Twitter after major YouTube reviews all shared scathing criticism on why the product doesn’t meet expectations.
