# AI theatre

> The presentation or purchase of AI tools that have no demonstrated commercial benefit to the organisation buying them, usually the result of pressure to be seen to move with the technology and to satisfy an investor, a board or a headline, rather than to address a known weakness or meet a stated objective.

Source: https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/ai-theatre/

## Terms of Trade · Edition 4: The AI pitch, and Barking Cat’s own terms

Definition

The presentation or purchase of AI tools that have no demonstrated commercial benefit to the organisation buying them, usually the result of pressure to be seen to move with the technology and to satisfy an investor, a board or a headline, rather than to address a known weakness or meet a stated objective. A Barking Cat term: the thing the AI Diagnostic exists to separate from the AI that pays back.

Field note

AI theatre is what a board buys when it cannot say what it wants AI to fix.

Board question

For each AI initiative in the plan, name the process it changes, the number it moves and the data it runs on; the ones that cannot be named are the theatre.

Applied through

[The Barking Cat AI Diagnostic](https://barkingcat.ai/the-barking-cat-ai-diagnostic/), which scores the operating model inside-out and names where AI pays back and where it is theatre; the Commercial Ownership foundation, because theatre is what happens when nobody owns the number.

Related terms
- [AI readiness](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/ai-readiness/)
- [Chatbot](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/chatbot/)
- [Personalisation](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/personalisation/)
- [Binding constraint](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/binding-constraint/)

## Contact

steve@barkingcat.ai

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.