Stuffing AI Into Everything Is Backfiring Spectacularly

For as much evidence as there is for believing that AI will rule our inevitably dystopian future, there’s plenty of other evidence that suggests it’s just a bunch of phony marketing gimmicks that people hate. In other words, AI might actually do more to turn us off than to unlock a better world.

A study reported on by The Wall Street Journal, recently published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, found that people are repelled by products, especially high-end ones, that promote AI integration.

The researchers, led by Dogan Gursoy of Washington State University, were surprised to learn that people preferred more generic buzzwords like “cutting-edge technology” over the flashier “AI-powered” label. The promise of a toaster that thinks is just a wee bit obnoxious.

The researchers split participants into two groups: one saw ads touting AI, the other saw ads that used vaguer tech jargon. The AI group was less interested in buying, probably because AI feels like a hype bubble ready to burst, sinking a whole lot of tech bro investors with it.

Turns out, people don’t want a “smart” appliance; they just want one that works. Does it toast the bread? Good. We did not need an AI to maximize our toast potential. Get outta here with that nonsense.

A different study cited by the Wall Street Journal study by Parks Associates surveyed 4,000 Americans and found that 58 percent said the term “AI” made no difference in their purchasing decisions.

24 percent said it made them less likely to buy. Only 18 percent said it helped. I wholeheartedly believe, with no evidence, that we should look into the stock portfolios of those 18 percent to see the many shares of AI-related companies they’re holding.

Shocking! People Actually Don’t Want ‘AI-Powered’ Everything.

None of this is painting a glowing picture of our artificially intelligent future. But, considering how many college students heavily rely on AI chatbots to make it seem like they put in even an ounce of effort into earning their degrees, maybe it’s a generational thing?

The Parks Association survey looked into that, too. It found that younger people ages 18 to 44 were a little bit more likely to buy AI-branded products than seniors, 1/3 of whom gave a flat no. But even then, the percentages weren’t significant, as only 24 to 27 percent of younger folks said slapping AI marketing on a product made them more likely to buy it.

All of this is because people do not inherently trust AI. Even people who rely on it to write a college paper, and perhaps especially these kinds of people, know for certain that AI kind of sucks at a wide variety of day-to-day practical applications.

People also have a big problem understanding what benefit it would provide. What use is an AI-enhanced vacuum cleaner or whatever? You know what? Don’t even bother explaining. You will not be able to provide a satisfying answer that I will immediately call out as being marketing speak—just old school American frontier snake oil and a snazzy tech coating.

Then there’s the other insurmountable hurdle: people naturally assume that an AI-infused thing is constantly snooping on them.

There was maybe an eight-minute window two years ago when having an AI-enhanced product was a boon. Now it just seems more like a creepy techno curse slapped on there because it’s the marketing buzzword of the day.

If you want to sell something with AI, it had better do more than just say it’s smart. It had better do something smart, and marketing departments need to do a better job of explaining to us how it saves time, effort, or provides positive value to our lives.

In other words, marketing teams need to stop being so lazy and get back to the fundamentals of their job by explaining to us why a feature is good and useful. Because those two letters aren’t telling us much.