Agreement Theater

Every executive in your AI strategy meeting is nodding. None of them are talking about the same thing.

One means chatbots. Another means autonomous agents. A third means the spreadsheet plugin she tried last Tuesday.

They all say "AI." They all mean something different. The meeting ends with consensus that doesn't exist.

This isn't a failure of communication.

It's the point.

Sociologists have a name for terms like this. Words important enough that everyone pays attention, undefined enough that everyone projects their own meaning. DNA was one. "Big data" was one. "AI" is the current one.

The vaguer the word, the more powerful it becomes.

A specific word can trap an entire industry's thinking. A vague one funds it.

Precise terms create debate. Imprecise terms create budgets.

Nobody fights over a well-defined proposal. Everybody funds a word they each interpret as their own priority. The CFO hears efficiency. The CTO hears infrastructure. The CEO hears competitive advantage.

Same word. Three different investments. All approved.

That's not confusion. That's how language manufactures alignment where none exists.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. "Digital transformation." "Innovation." "Customer-centric." Every corporate initiative that survived committee got its power from meaning nothing specific to anyone.

The most dangerous word in your strategy isn't the wrong one. It's the one everyone agrees on without defining.

Go deeper: The Perception Engine