Jersey Mike's IPO文件暴露AI炒作泛滥：连三明治店也蹭AI概念

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, TC

When 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 November 4 Boston

Last chance to save up to $190 on TechCrunch Founder Summit. Join 1,000+ founders and VCs at all stages for real-world scaling insights and connections that move the needle.

Savings end June 26, 11:59 p.m. PT.

REGISTER NOW

Most Popular

• Chevy built an all-American EV truck — why is nobody buying it?
  

  • Tim De Chant

• Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven’t progressed as quickly as he’d hoped
  

  • Lucas Ropek

• Jersey Mike’s IPO illustrates how bad the AI hype has become
  

  • Julie Bort

• After $18B IPO, Bending Spoons founder says success comes from minimizing luck
  

  • Anna Heim

• The ‘Father of the Internet’ is finally retiring
  

  • Tim Fernholz

• OpenClaw is finally available on Android and iOS
  

  • Lucas Ropek

• Flipper Device’s new Busy Bar is a customizable display for productivity
  

  • Ivan Mehta