Friends, today's AI absurdity has transcended “Agent drops the database” and “AI resurrects the dead” — it's ascended to the level of performance art.

Here's what happened: an American sandwich chain called Jersey Mike's — you know, the sub place with Danny DeVito as their spokesperson — filed S-1 IPO paperwork this week. A sandwich chain going public — what does that have to do with AI? Not a thing, right?

But a TechCrunch reporter, bored enough to flip through the S-1, nearly laughed out loud: “artificial intelligence” and its abbreviation “AI” appeared a total of 22 times in the filing.

22 Mentions of AI, 0 of Lightning

Friends, let that sink in. A sandwich company, in its investor risk factors section, earnestly mentions AI risks, claiming “we are beginning to use AI technology in our business.” What exactly are they using AI for? The filing doesn't say. How is that a risk? Doesn't say either. The point is just to mention it — without mentioning AI, investors might think you're a dated sandwich shop.

Even funnier is the comparison. The TechCrunch reporter counted: “software” was mentioned 52 times, “data” 112 times (it's a chain, they do use software and data, fair enough), “weather” 5 times — extreme weather can indeed affect ingredient supply and store operations, totally reasonable.

And “lightning”? Zero times.

Guess what? In 2021, a Jersey Mike's location in Texas actually got struck by lightning, causing property damage. It literally happened, but wasn't mentioned once in the S-1 risk factors. Yet AI — a technology they're “just beginning to use” — got written into risk factors with a straight face.

Let me translate the subtext of this S-1: “Dear investors, we sell sandwiches, but we're name-dropping AI too, please give us a higher valuation. AI might cause problems (like Starbucks' AI inventory tool that couldn't count coffee beans and slowed down baristas so badly it got quietly killed after a few months), but hey, we mentioned AI, so please give us that AI premium, thanks.”

The AI Bubble Thermometer

Jersey Mike's isn't the first and won't be the last company to name-drop AI. There was the esports company that raised an extra $20 million by adding AI to its pitch deck; Bending Spoons — a company that acquires “non-AI” old apps and refurbishes them — also made sure to emphasize AI when going public. In today's capital markets, not mentioning AI is like not mentioning ‘.com’ in 2000, ‘blockchain’ in 2017, or ‘metaverse’ in 2021 — you can't even show your face to investors.

The TechCrunch reporter put it well: he's not sure exactly where AI hype crosses from “genuine excitement” to “bubble” to “give me a break,” but “when a Danny DeVito-endorsed sandwich shop is talking about AI in its IPO filing, we must be getting close to that inflection point.”

To be fair, Jersey Mike's AI risk disclosure might be boilerplate written by lawyers — just as every S-1 includes “macroeconomic downturn could affect performance,” AI is just the 2026 version of template clauses. Starbucks did faceplant with AI (that inventory system that couldn't count stock), so from a legal risk perspective the mention isn't totally baseless.

But 22 times? These are sandwiches, people. Is your AI helping you chop lettuce or calculate franchise fees? Twenty-two times — roughly once every 15 pages, four times more important than weather risk, infinitely more important than getting struck by lightning.

Honestly, I'm half-expecting the roadshow deck to feature buzzphrases like “AI-empowered sandwich customization engine” and “LLM-driven supply chain optimization.” After all, in 2026 if you don't package yourself as an AI company, you're embarrassed to go public.