GoKawiilEntrepreneur op-ed: Companies repeat old hype mistakes by branding everything 'AI-powered'
A business contributor argues that many companies are slapping 'AI' onto products and marketing without delivering meaningfully different customer experiences, citing examples from business software and home appliances. The piece compares this to past buzzword cycles like dot-com, Web 2.0, big data and blockchain, where messaging often outpaced actual value delivered to customers.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
As AI marketing saturates every industry, buyers increasingly discount the term itself, making genuine differentiation harder to communicate and easier to fake. Companies that substitute buzzwords for real customer outcomes risk brand fatigue once the novelty of 'AI-powered' labeling wears off.
- AI alone isn't a differentiator when every competitor makes the same claim.
- Real value comes from specific customer outcomes, not surface-level feature branding.
- A simple test: remove 'AI' from messaging and see if anything compelling remains.
Source: entrepreneur.com — Cara Sloman, 2026-09-09
Published there as: “I’ve Watched Four Tech Hype Cycles. Companies Are Botching AI the Same Way.”
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