Stop Falling for Corporate AI Theater
Those dramatic CEO warnings about AI taking your job aren't predictions. They're marketing.
Hi, I’m Jamaal. Welcome to Jamaal’s Letter, where I share insights, predictions, and strong opinions on the future of markets, work, business, tech, and more.
The people who read this newsletter are the people who run the world. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, consider joining them by subscribing below. Please share it with your friends and colleagues if you find it helpful:
Lately, my social media feeds have been overflowing with admiration for a wave of “leaked” internal memos from executives at companies like Shopify and Fiverr. At first glance, these messages appear profound — urgent declarations about the transformative power of artificial intelligence and how it’s reshaping work from the inside out.
Take Shopify. In April 2025, the company adopted an “AI-first” policy that mandates “reflexive AI usage as a baseline expectation.” The memo, positioned as a bold internal directive, outlines sweeping changes to hiring, resource allocation, and daily operations. Under this new standard, no team is allowed to hire unless they first prove that the role can’t be filled by AI.
Then there’s Fiverr. CEO Micha Kaufman’s note was even more direct: “AI is coming for your jobs.” He urged employees to master AI tools or risk obsolescence, declaring that no one, including himself, is immune to automation’s reach. Similar memos later surfaced at Box, Duolingo, and other companies angling to define their future around AI.
These memos are part edict, part existential reflection on a technological inflection point. But, make no mistake, they are, first and foremost, marketing materials. And I’m not sure enough people realize that.
How do I know? Because large companies don’t casually reveal their business strategy in memos designed to be easily screenshotted and shared online. Communications teams know these will leak, or leak them intentionally. These types of memos serve a marketing purpose: to cast the CEO as a visionary, attract a certain type of potential employee, position the company publicly as “AI-first,” or more cynically, to soften the blow for impending bad news. In some cases, they’re setting the stage to use AI as a rationale for hiring freezes or layoffs.
Welcome to AI Theater (Where Everyone's Acting)
Welcome to the world of AI theater, where companies — and increasingly, individuals— engage in performative, often exaggerated proclamations about artificial intelligence. These proclamations are rarely about the tech itself. More often, they’re veiled marketing schemes, brand-building exercises, or clever distractions.
To be clear: I’m not an AI skeptic. I use the technology constantly (including to edit the words you’re reading at this moment). I believe AI will meaningfully transform how we live and work, even if it never reaches the grandiose heights promised by AGI evangelists. But that’s exactly why we need to see through the theater. The real transformation is happening quickly and materially, beneath the noise. And the louder the hype, the more likely it’s hiding something else.
Everyone in AI Is “Talking Their Own Book”
As I’ve written before, AI is a mirror; what people see in it usually reflects what they want, not what’s necessarily true. In this moment of peak AI hype, nearly everyone in the conversation is “talking their own book.” That is: they’re promoting visions of the future that conveniently align with their personal or professional interests.
When ChatGPT exploded generative AI into the mainstream, the major players didn’t just offer predictions; they offered narratives that would benefit them if widely believed. Elon Musk, after losing his stake in OpenAI, suddenly began advocating for a pause in AI development, which would conveniently slow down his former company. Sam Altman, meanwhile, proposed licensing regulations for advanced AI systems, which happen to create barriers for OpenAI’s smaller competitors. Even AI “doomers,” whose apocalyptic warnings can feel over the top, benefit when those warnings attract attention, funding, and institutional relevance for their safety work.
The pattern is obvious: in a space where no one actually knows what’s coming, everyone’s predictions manage to align suspiciously well with their bottom line.
AI (Substance and Hype) Is Big Business
And the rewards for stoking AI hype are enormous. Every serious organization is now scrambling to understand how AI will affect their future. Because most of them aren’t in the business of building software, that often means bringing in outside consultants.
AI Consulting. Accenture, for instance, reported more than $2.5 billion in AI-related revenue in just the first half of its 2025 fiscal year. A rough survey of market research firms estimates, likely talking their books, have projected a $60 billion to $90 billion AI consulting market by 2030.
Venture Capital Investment in AI. Venture capital is no different. Since 2023, AI companies have drawn more than a third of all global VC investment. In the U.S., nearly half of all venture funding in 2024 went to AI startups. That number jumped to over 70% in Q1 of 2025 alone.
Social Media, Branding, and Digital Learning. The same dynamics play out on social media. Entire brands have been built and followings have exploded by leaning hard into AI content, often with a mix of genuine insight and breathless speculation. Fomenting fear, urgency, or hype around AI isn’t just harmless futurism; it’s a growth strategy. It generates consulting revenue, attracts capital, builds personal and organizational brands, and conveniently, distracts from uncomfortable truths like layoffs, slowing business performance, or boring technological incrementalism.
This is what makes AI so powerful as a tool of obfuscation. It isn’t just that it’s new or poorly understood. It’s that nearly everyone talking about it has something to sell.
AI is a Convenient Shield for Corporate Retrenchment
The people peddling AI hype would have you believe AI is either a productivity panacea or an existential threat. While it's unclear who will be right, in practice, for many companies, it’s become something else entirely: a convenient cover for slowing growth and job cuts. Over the past two years, companies have invoked artificial intelligence not just as a transformative technology, but as a strategic smokescreen. We will see more of this.
The reality is that much of the recent retrenchment has little to do with AI itself. Economic growth remains tepid, at best. Political and economic uncertainty — driven by geopolitical instability, volatile markets, shifting consumer behavior, and evolving technology — has made long-term planning more challenging than ever. Higher interest rates have tightened access to capital, forcing companies to prioritize profitability over headcount expansion. Add to this the wave of big tech and white-collar layoffs in 2023 and 2024, and the picture becomes clear: businesses are pulling back, regardless of their AI narratives.
Even the tech giants at the center of the AI boom aren’t immune. In May, Microsoft announced layoffs of roughly 6,000 employees, 3% of its global workforce. It was the company’s largest job reduction since 2023, and notably, even roles tied to artificial intelligence were affected.
Rather than framing these moves as responses to macroeconomic pressure, many companies are positioning them as part of a shift toward AI-driven efficiency. The message: fewer people are needed, because the technology is just that powerful. It’s a compelling narrative, but it often obscures the truth: AI isn’t replacing headcount as much as it's justifying cuts that were coming anyway.
As a result, AI is becoming a kind of corporate Trojan horse. It signals progress, but masks contraction. It sells innovation, while concealing stagnation. And in a moment when companies are under pressure to do more with less, it’s proving to be the perfect excuse.
Don't Fall for the Performance
The next time you see a breathless AI proclamation, whether it is a "leaked" executive memo, a consultant's apocalyptic prediction, or a LinkedIn influencer's urgent warning about job displacement, ask yourself: Who benefits if I believe this? AI will undoubtedly reshape our world, but the most consequential changes are happening quietly in the actual deployment of useful tools, not in the theater of viral memos and performative panic. The real story isn't in the hype; it's in the gap between what companies say AI will do and what they're actually using it for. Cut through the noise. Question the motives. And remember that in a gold rush, the people selling shovels — and fear — are often the ones getting rich. The future belongs to those who can see past the performance to the practical reality beneath.
Does your board need members who can reveal blind spots, anticipate risks, tackle M&A, or engage confidently with capital markets? Let’s connect. Reach out if your board is seeking fresh, financially sophisticated leadership.
👋🏿 I’m Jamaal Glenn. I serve on boards to help organizations navigate growth, risk, and complexity with financial discipline and bold, future-focused strategy. My career spans $70 billion in capital markets and M&A transactions, venture capital leadership, and scaling technology and media businesses backed by luminaries like Eric Schmidt, Pierre Omidyar, and leading global family offices. I’ve chaired audit and finance committees and advised institutional investors that deploy billions into cutting-edge sectors, including AI, fintech, and digital infrastructure. As a Qualified Financial Expert, I bring not only deep capital markets and deal expertise, but also operational leadership—having built, scaled, and exited ventures, raised over $150 million from institutional investors, and helped shape the growth strategies of both startups and Fortune 500-caliber enterprises. I pair financial rigor with a governance mindset, positioning me to join—and ultimately chair—an audit committee while driving long-term value creation.