> The people who are being marketed to with the AI term don't have any idea what that mean and AI

To clarify, I'm mainly talking about B2B-type businesses where the marketing is to investors or other large enterprises. Despite the fact that it's popular and in vogue to think of VCs and business leaders as idiots, most of them actually do understand what AI is and the difference between "modern" AI and basic automation.

And even if you're talking about end consumers, I feel like there is a growing backlash against AI and people will think of a business that touts their "AI dishwasher" or whatever as obvious bullshit and see it as a net negative.

The continuous/tracking/predictive AF modes of Canon’s EOS (D)SLR cameras were famously called "AI Servo" and "AI Focus", terms coined somewhere in the late 80s I believe. The early implementations were simple dead-reckoning-based control systems, hardly "AI" even by the standards of that time.

Slightly ironically, now in the mirrorless era, and AF algorithms actually based on DL subject recognition and complex predictive algorithms, Canon has retired the "AI" label.