Jersey Mike's IPO Reveals AI Hype Run Amok: Even a Sandwich Shop Touts AI
Score
53Why selected
While the event reveals the phenomenon of AI hype, it is not a major technological breakthrough, hence the low score.
AI commentary
「This incident shows that AI hype has infiltrated non-tech industries, potentially distorting market judgment about genuine AI innovation.」
Quick overview
Jersey Mike's mentions AI in its IPO filing, even though the sandwich chain's core business has nothing to do with AI. This highlights how pervasive AI hype has become, with even traditional food brands hopping on the bandwagon. The case serves as a caution for investors and industry observers that the overuse of 'AI' labels may obscure genuine technological breakthroughs.
- Jersey Mike's mentions AI-related language in its IPO filing.
- The brand does not actually rely on or develop AI technology.
- This reflects AI has become a marketing tactic to attract capital market attention.
- Investors should be wary of non-tech companies abusing the AI label.
Full text
I can’t tell the exact tipping point from realistic excitement over a new technology, to hype, to aww-come-on — but I’m pretty sure when a sandwich shop with Danny DeVito as its public face talks about AI in its IPO documents, we must be getting close.
So it is with Jersey Mike’s.
Because of investor thirst for all things AI these days, I understand why tech companies feel the need to sprinkle AI dust all over their pitches. This is as true for non-AI startups raising venture capital as it is for Bending Spoons’ public debut, a company in the business of buying aging, “not-AI” tech companies to rehabilitate.
Just for kicks, I took a look at Jersey Mike’s IPO documents to see how far this compulsion may go. Surely a sandwich shop would have no need to mention AI in its S-1. But lo and behold!
The term artificial intelligence and its acronym “AI” were mentioned 22 times. In this case, the company can’t claim to be selling AI software. It sells submarine sandwiches. AI products are what investors are really hungering for (terrible pun intended).
Still, it found a way to mention AI in its investor-risk warnings. That may be even more funny. It doesn’t explain what it’s using AI for that could be dangerous to investors, beyond a hand-wave of a phrase, “We are beginning to use AI Technologies in our business.”
In all fairness, as a company that operates franchisees, it does rely on software (mentioned 52 times) and data (112 mentions), as all businesses do. Its AI risk warning was boilerplate copy, perhaps even necessary, as such disasters have already happened to other food businesses, like the half-baked AI inventory tool that Starbucks rolled out, which couldn’t count and was recently scrapped.
Still, I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the risk of an AI disaster for a company that produces real-life sandwiches, not AI slop, is about the same as, say, a franchise shop getting hit by lightning. That actually happened, by the way, to a shop in Texas in 2021. Yet weather was only mentioned five times in the S-1. And lightning? Not once.
Topics
AI, IPOs, sandwiches, TCWhen you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Julie Bort
Venture Editor
Julie Bort is the Startups/Venture Desk editor for TechCrunch.You can contact or verify outreach from Julie by emailing julie.bort@techcrunch.com or via @Julie188 on X. View Bio
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