AI washing
In plain wordsFalsely claiming that a product or company uses AI, or exaggerating how much it does, to look more advanced and attract customers or investors.
The practice of making false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the use, sophistication or benefits of AI in a product, service, investment process or business, by analogy with greenwashing. Forms include rebranding conventional software or human labor as AI, implying automation that is actually performed by people (see ghost workghost work, n.: The hidden human labor behind AI: people, often poorly paid and far away, who label data, check outputs and handle cases the software cannot, while the product appears fully automatic.), overstating accuracy, and relabeling ordinary automation or chatbots as agentic, sometimes called agent washing. It is treated as an enforcement matter: the US Securities and Exchange Commission brought its first AI-washing cases, against two investment advisers, in March 2024, and the Federal Trade Commission's Operation AI Comply (September 2024) targeted deceptive AI claims. Consumer-protection, advertising and securities law in many jurisdictions applies to such claims.
The 'AI-powered' fraud screening turned out to be keyword rules, a clear case of AI washing in the prospectus.
Origin
Modeled on 'greenwashing', coined by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986. 'AI washing' was in use by the late 2010s for companies inflating their AI credentials (an early definition is credited to New York University's AI Now Institute in 2019), though its first use has not been established; regulators adopted it from late 2023, when SEC chair Gary Gensler warned against it. Gartner applied 'agent washing' in 2025 to vendors rebranding existing products as AI agents.
Related
- AI hypeAI hype, n.: Exaggerated claims about what AI can do or will soon do, made to attract money, attention or customers, which can mislead the public and policymakers.
- ethics washingethics washing, n.: Using talk of ethics, such as principles, advisory boards or pledges, to look responsible and head off regulation, without actually changing what a company does.
- hype cyclehype cycle, n.: A pattern in which excitement about a new technology rises to a peak, crashes into disappointment, then slowly recovers as the technology finds real uses.
- AI bubbleAI bubble, n.: The worry that investors are pouring far more money into AI companies, chips and data centers than AI will earn back soon, so that prices could crash as in the dot-com bust of 2000.
- ghost workghost work, n.: The hidden human labor behind AI: people, often poorly paid and far away, who label data, check outputs and handle cases the software cannot, while the product appears fully automatic.
- AI-poweredAI-powered, adj.: Described as using artificial intelligence to work. The label appears on everything from search engines to toothbrushes and often says little about how much AI is really involved.
Sources
- US Securities and Exchange Commission (2024). Press release, 18 March 2024: charges against Delphia (USA) Inc. and Global Predictions Inc. for false and misleading statements about their use of artificial intelligence.
Mentioned in
artificial intelligenceartificial intelligence, n.: Computer systems that do things we would normally credit to a thinking mind, such as holding a conversation, reading an X-ray or planning a route, and the field of research that builds them., AI effectAI effect, n.: The habit of deciding that once a computer can do something — play chess, recognize speech, translate — it no longer counts as real intelligence, so the label keeps moving on to tasks machines cannot manage yet., AI hypeAI hype, n.: Exaggerated claims about what AI can do or will soon do, made to attract money, attention or customers, which can mislead the public and policymakers., AI-poweredAI-powered, adj.: Described as using artificial intelligence to work. The label appears on everything from search engines to toothbrushes and often says little about how much AI is really involved., ethics washingethics washing, n.: Using talk of ethics, such as principles, advisory boards or pledges, to look responsible and head off regulation, without actually changing what a company does., hype cyclehype cycle, n.: A pattern in which excitement about a new technology rises to a peak, crashes into disappointment, then slowly recovers as the technology finds real uses., cognitive computingcognitive computing, n.: A label, promoted heavily by IBM in the 2010s, for computer systems that learn, reason and interact with people in humanlike ways. It was largely a marketing term and has given way to 'AI'., Mechanical TurkMechanical Turk, prop. n.: A famous fake chess-playing machine from 1770: a robed figure that seemed to play chess by itself but hid a human player inside. Its name now stands for 'AI' that is really people working behind the scenes., safetywashingsafetywashing, n.: Making AI work sound as if it improves safety when it mostly just makes AI more capable — like 'greenwashing' for environmental claims.