Signal: AI Adjacency Identity Inflation
If every company becomes an AI company by touching an AI tool, the label may stop meaning much. The deeper questions about product, revenue, customer experience and capability often stay very familiar.
AI Adjacency Inflation
A lot of companies are not becoming AI companies, unfortunately, they are becoming companies standing next to AI and hoping the market notices first.
Using AI is not the same as becoming an AI company, sometimes it just means the AI sticker gets the budget.
What showed up
A business adds AI to its website, investor story or market identity because it uses AI somewhere in the stack and the label changes quickly. The deeper questions about product, revenue, customer experience and capability often stay very familiar.
Why it matters
Words shape expectations: if every company becomes an AI company by touching an AI tool, the label stops meaning much. More importantly, the re-label can hide whether anything material changed in how the company creates value, earns money or serves customers.
The pattern
The pattern is AI label acceleration, the story updates first because stories are cheap. The operating model, product structure, revenue logic and capability depth move more slowly. This current gap is where a lot of modern market theatre and hype live.
Where this shows up in everyday work
- A bank adds AI to its front-page story while still making money the old-fashioned way: by doing banking.
- A retailer uses AI for product descriptions and internal forecasting, then quietly upgrades its corporate identity to “AI-powered retail”.
- A consulting firm puts AI everywhere in the pitch deck, while the deliverable remains a very familiar slide pack with extra jargon.
- A logistics business uses AI inside routing or planning and suddenly sounds like it has crossed into a whole new species of company.
What to watch before it becomes another programme
- Check whether the product changed or only the presentation changed.
- Ask whether customers are paying for a new AI-native capability or simply hearing a new label around the old service.
- Look for real shifts in revenue mix, workflow design, staffing or cost structure before calling it a transformed business.
- Be careful when the phrase “AI company” means nothing more than “we bought a tool like everybody else”.
- Watch for markets rewarding adjacency before they reward proof.
The Satire
We added one model to the stack and discovered a completely new company identity by lunchtime.
Related Vieews paths
Signals pull the thread. Guides help check it. Playbooks hold the heavier structure when needed.
Chaos
The Blue Blob and the AI Sticker
The discovery scene that started this thread.
Guide
Are You Actually An AI Company?
Use the practical check when you need the next simple move.
Playbook
AI Value Ledger
Use the heavier structure when the topic needs more depth.
Useful context
AI adjacency can still matter. A company can become more efficient, more interesting or more scalable by using AI well. The point is simply to separate “uses AI” from “has materially become something different.”
These are Vieews, not bibles, use as basic lenses, not prediction, investment advice, or a replacement for doing your own investigation. If a line makes the spreadsheet uncomfortable, excellent, ask one more question, tug on that thread (don't get fired!).
