Our practices for covering AI investment decisions have shifted meaningfully, and the specific changes are worth naming.
We started looking for evidence of a stated ROI framework
Early coverage sometimes reported investment decisions without asking whether the company had articulated any specific framework for evaluating return. We now look for this more consistently.
We got more honest about the limits of what we can verify
We're now more willing to state plainly when we can describe what a company is spending without being able to confidently assess whether that spending reflects sound judgment.
We stopped treating spending level alone as a signal of seriousness
We used to sometimes imply that larger AI investment signaled greater strategic seriousness. We've corrected for this, since spending level alone says little about whether the investment is well-reasoned.
Why this evolution matters
Investment coverage that conflates spending size with strategic soundness misleads readers, and we think being explicit about correcting for that conflation is worth stating directly.