Greenwashing is a term that became popular in the last few years. It basically refers to a company sharing misleading information to promote an environmentally responsible image.
About a year ago, ChatGPT was released to the public. It was the first time an AI tool appeared to be useful to the common user.
It responded in normal, everyday language. It was fun and useful in many tedious tasks. And, the user had nothing to install or buy.
It caught everyone’s attention immediately. Suddenly, every IT company in the world was making AI product claims.
But are they legit?
Personally, think there’s a lot of AI washing in the marketplace right now.
What are examples of AI washing?
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean by AI washing:
I was sitting in a software demo last year. As the session progressed, the salesperson made multiple comments about the use of AI for some of its common tasks. When I asked if these functions were available now, they said… “No, but they’re on the roadmap.” Six months later, they still don’t exist.
With another vendor demo, the salesperson would interchange the word “automation” or “workflows” with the word “AI” instead. There was no evidence that artificial intelligence was used to streamline these processes. AI was just the word of the day that got his clients excited.
Even with Microsoft, one of the largest companies currently investing in the AI space, I’m disappointed.
I bought the $500+ Copilot license the first day it was available, excited about the incorporation of AI into the Microsoft 365 suite. Unfortunately, the hype is not living up to the reality.
In fact, if you try to duplicate some of the functions shown in their commercial videos, achieving the same quality output would take tremendous effort.
The negative consequence of AI washing for Not for Profits
I spend my workdays helping Not for Profits make IT investment decisions. These organisations don’t waste money. On the contrary.
They are usually so lean that they often delay IT investments until they can no longer afford the technical debt.
So, it’s been very concerning to me when I hear Not for Profit executives and board members talk about AI investments as if they’re going to solve all their problems.
Case in point – Board members from two different organisations told me they were delaying critical CRM investments because they wanted to see where AI was heading.
My response – “Your team spends most of their time doing manual tasks because the current CRM is not meeting their basic needs. It’s more important to reduce your risks and fix the critical pain points first.”
In other words… you can’t run with AI until you can walk with basic, efficient operations.
I also had an executive in a recent meeting ask me if the IT roadmap I was developing for his organisation would incorporate AI so that all the free text information in the CRM could be reportable.
“No, we still need to properly structure the data to be able to report on it,” I answered honestly.
That might change in a few years, but it cannot be done accurately and reliably today.
Yet, if I believed the AI washing sold by the vendors, I might lead this organisation down an expensive IT investment pathway that would take years to recover their return on investment.
My message to Not for Profits
On Tuesday, I spent the whole morning at a vendor’s event, sharing their new AI capability in one of their applications. The guy sitting next to me looked my way. He was clearly excited about what he saw, “This is really incredible, isn’t it.”
My message to Not for Profits is the same answer I gave him: “Don’t overestimate the power of AI. Except for a few use cases, it’s not there yet.”
My request to software vendors
Industry-wide AI washing is confusing your potential customers. Some are delaying investments, and others are preparing to make investments in functionality that doesn’t exist yet.
Not for Profits are already struggling in this current economic climate. They are only making IT investments when they absolutely need to do so.
Please don’t cloud their decisions by making grand promises about AI that you can’t keep when they go live.
I regularly help Not for Profits with decisions about their IT investments. Let me know if you need some help.
P.S. If you found this article helpful, you might want to read these too:
- What if your Not for Profit cannot afford to upgrade your IT systems?
- When is it time to upgrade your system?
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today, she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions, especially around investments.