advertisers spent years paying for an ai that listened to customers through their smart devices. the ftc finalized the orders last week: there was no voice data in it, the targeting ran on purchased email lists, and the bill came to $930,000.

cox media group and two marketing firms sold a service they said used a special algorithm to detect relevant conversations near a phone and put local ads in front of the people having them. the ftc says it used no voice data at all, consumers never opted into anything, and the location results did not match the claim. the condition is not that a vendor lied, it is that the story about how the system worked was doing all the selling, and any results that came back could be read as proof of the story because there was no way to test it. that shape is in your budget right now anywhere you are paying for a capability rather than an outcome, and a capability you cannot audit keeps billing long after it stops existing.

the fake fix is asking the vendor to explain the technology in more detail, which gets you a better story from the same people. buy the number instead: name the p&l line the spend is supposed to move, agree how it gets measured before you sign, and hold back a slice of the audience or the accounts that gets none of it. a vendor who will not sell against a number is selling you the explanation.