{"id":248339,"date":"2026-05-18T08:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/companies-are-hyping-ai-the-same-way-they-talked-up-sustainability-but-there-are-ways-to-fix-that\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T09:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:00:13","slug":"companies-are-hyping-ai-the-same-way-they-talked-up-sustainability-but-there-are-ways-to-fix-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/companies-are-hyping-ai-the-same-way-they-talked-up-sustainability-but-there-are-ways-to-fix-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Companies are hyping AI the same way they talked up sustainability, but there are ways to fix that"},"content":{"rendered":"

Companies are hyping AI the same way they talked up sustainability, but there are ways to fix that<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/companies-are-hyping-ai-the-same-way-they-talked-up-sustainability-but-there-are-ways-to-fix-that-282013<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-18 08:19:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Across corporate earnings calls, investor presentations and marketing pitches, \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d has become the buzzword of choice. Yet a troubling pattern lies under the hype. Many claims vastly overstate actual AI sophistication, misleading people about true capabilities, future outcomes and potential harms.<\/p>\n

A case in point is the recent 600% share price surge of Allbirds, after the once-trendy sustainable footwear business issued a vague announcement in April 2026 that it would pivot to AI. In the coming months, the company plans to rename itself NewBird AI and give up its status as a public benefit corporation.<\/p>\n

As a scholar who studies corporate sustainability, I see parallels between this \u201cAI washing\u201d phenomenon \u2013 when companies oversell the benefits of AI while glossing over the risks \u2013 and the greenwashing trend in the recent past, when companies claimed to commit to sustainability but didn\u2019t enact fundamental change. Widespread deception was rampant, with businesses spending far more on green marketing than on actual sustainability improvements. And those efforts often backfired on both the companies and the communities they served. Even more worrisome: AI washing\u2019s rapid rise and widespread adoption will likely eclipse the greenwashing trends. <\/p>\n

How we got here<\/h2>\n

AI washing is thriving because companies and policymakers ignore four important principles. These shortfalls, in the past, also characterized greenwashing.<\/p>\n

First, AI guidelines lack standardization. By 2019, 84 sets of AI ethics principles and guidelines had already been published. By 2023, this number had exploded to more than 200 \u2013 a mess of voluntary frameworks from companies, research institutions and public organizations. <\/p>\n

Making matters worse is that the U.S. currently relies on fragmented AI rules, with most being voluntary. The Trump administration has generally sided with Big Tech to push back efforts at state or federal regulation. At a global level,…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Companies are hyping AI the same way they talked up sustainability, but there are ways…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/736227\/original\/file-20260515-63-1u4nfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C638%2C3000%2C1500&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-248339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248341,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248339\/revisions\/248341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}