Everyone Wants a Piece of the AI Pie Swiping through LinkedIn feels like watching a campsite suddenly flooded with s’mores. Every other ad, i.e. post, promises the next miracle AI service, platform, or “AI-powered” widget. It’s a frenzy that says: “If buzzwords paid the bills, we’d all be billionaires already.” I can’t fault the reasoning, there’s a lot of buzz out there telling vendors, “If you don’t have AI in your product, you’re not here to do business.” This message is being toted by cloud and AI vendors, as well as paying customers. I’ve been on calls where the customer starts the meeting by asking what AI is built into the products, not if the product solves a problem in itself. The Money Behind the MadnessTech giants are splurging on AI, and I mean HARD. In 2025, companies like Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta are expected to collectively invest around $364 billion in AI infrastructure and related expenses and it’s not just an assumption by one, but reported by many sources. Just this year, Big Tech’s AI spending has already reached $155 billion, with projections soaring toward $400 billion in coming fiscal years. This surge isn’t mere flash: Goldman-level confidence sees AI propelling GDP by 0.7%, composing half of the Federal Reserve’s projected 1.4% growth. This growth also means more jobs as AI products are built, (no matter how much marketing likes to present that AI is building itself.) Companies aren’t just spending though, they’re profiting. Amazon’s AWS derives 21% of its 2025 revenue from AI workloads, projected to balloon to $41.6 billion by 2027. EPAM and Paycom recently raised their revenue forecasts citing relentless AI demand. Meanwhile, Pinterest attributes its Q2 revenue beat to AI-powered ad tools, so the investment is paying off. The Buzzword Economy Reigns SupremeOne of the challenges I’m facing right now as a presenter is figuring out: how much AI content is too much? AI spans a wide range of technologies, and the term itself is often misused or oversimplified. What one person calls "AI" may not technically qualify as such and that’s where the buzzword problem begins. When AI is used loosely or inaccurately, especially to secure speaking opportunities, it shifts from substance to marketing. Using AI in this fashion doesn’t stop here, as I’ve noticed it may be used to drive higher attendance to events, too. Even major conferences have been swept up in this. Oracle, for example, has rebranded its flagship event from Oracle Cloud World to Oracle AI World for 2025. In my view, this is Oracle’s way of avoiding the late-to-cloud mistake they made years ago and making sure no one accuses them of missing the AI wave now that “cloud” is considered old news. Similarly, the AIIM Conference has rebranded itself as the AI+IM Global Summit, emphasizing AI as both a central theme and a required talking point. Where Are the Data & ML Scientists?Step onto the stage for many events, and you'd expect algorithms, not buzzwords. Yet presentations increasingly come from marketing leads or at the most, product managers, not data scientists or ML researchers. The pressing question is: “How many AI implementations have you completed?”, which has been overshadowed by polished slides and strategic branding. It's less about depth, more about optics, which has been concerning me in recent years. The Simple FixThere’s a simple fix buried under all the hype: stop using your bottom line to masquerade as AI strategy. Investment without validation leaves you with flashy tech and empty ROI. Let’s demand real benchmarks, like how many deployments, what’s the accuracy, what improved? Let’s insist AI serves productivity, innovation, and constructive problem-solving, not just the next quarterly number. Let’s make the AI pie about substances, not just big slices. Want to read more on the investment big tech is making in the world of AI? Check out the AI Index Report: Stanford University AI Index Report And Fortune’s take on the AI Data Center Conundrum to the Economy: Spending on AI Data Centers is so Massive Peace out. DBAKevlar Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums | 
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