What We’re Really Saying When We Talk “AI” to “Agile”

What have been the most popular buzzwords over the last 3 decades? Do they come and go like fashion or do they stay around carrying weight when it comes to growing your business and developing your processes. Let’s explore the most overused buzzwords of the last 30 years, what they originally meant vs how they are/were misused, and what new concepts signal real innovation. 

Covered in this article

Sound Familiar?
The Rise of Buzzwords: What They Reveal and Conceal?

The Buzzword Index: What the Data Says
Business Buzzwords: Value or Vice?

Are You Selling a Vision or a Voiceover? 
FAQs

Sound Familiar?

We’ve all become accustomed to the lingo floating around the last five years - words like “pandemic”, “remote work”, “the new normal”, “digital transformation” to the quirky side of online meetings like “You’re on mute” (we offer a staff prize at year end to the person who speaks on mute the most!), “Am I audible?”, “Can you see my screen?” to “I’m having connectivity issues” (when you are actually just late) or “My camera is not working” (for those bad hair days!). 

So why do buzzwords emerge? Quite often it’s because of a new trend, hype around a new technological development or the latest business topic. Sometimes it is to offer clarity on a complex concept, or simply because of a changing generation. For example, younger people today are more mindful of sustainability and transparency, and will look for these in brand offerings. Changes in workforce dynamics also contribute, think “hybrid roles” or “remote-only” roles. Consumer expectations can also give rise to new terminology - “online shopping” and “seamless experience” come to mind.

Some buzzwords die a slow death, others quickly lose their meaning through overuse. Let’s look at what the past 30 years have shown us when it comes to buzzwords. 

The Rise of Buzzwords: What They Reveal and Conceal

Big Hair, Bigger Jargon: Power Suits and the Birth of Corporate Buzz

Apart from wild hair and iconic pop music, business in the 1980s was all about mergers and acquisitions that brought promises of synergy between companies. Every strategic change was framed as a fundamental paradigm shift. The 1980s also saw the rise of organisational psychology and corporate culture. Rightsizing was used as a euphemism for layoffs that sounded more positive than downsizing. Management concepts like quality circles and strategic planning were emphasised with companies pursuing excellence in everything - mostly inspired by the book “In Search of Excellence” by Tom Peters and Robert H Waterman Junior which highlighted eight key principles of successful companies. Negotiation strategies focused on mutually beneficial outcomes, which led to coining the term win-win. Helping employees have authority and take more responsibility was termed empowerment, while proposals for new projects had to demonstrate value-add.

Flat Hierarchies, Big Ideas: Process Overhaul and the Race to Be World-Class

Themes changed in the 1990s. Every company aspired to be world-class in their industry, often turning to business process reengineering, which promised to revolutionise operations. Total Quality Management (TQM) was widely held as the way to go in manufacturing, while identifying and adopting industry best practices, measuring a company’s performance against industry leaders through benchmarking became commonplace. Managing organisational change became a specialised field, while a customer-centric approach made the customer the centre of all business decisions. The 90s also saw flat organisation, i.e. reducing management layers for faster decision-making, while the term knowledge worker was coined to recognise intellectual capital as a key business asset.

Platforms, Precision and Planet: When Enterprise Ruled the Business World

Stepping into the new millennium, brought a host of other concepts, many of which are still around today - apart from Y2K that is. Web 2.0 drove user-generated content and social media, connecting people and businesses, with viral marketing contributing to organic growth. Social sharing became the norm. Six Sigma, based on the idea that all business processes could be measured and optimised, became widely used as a quality-improvement methodology in both the private and public sectors, to help eliminate waste. Companies were facing competition and looked toward innovation to get ahead, outsourcing or offshoring to reduce costs by moving operations to lower-cost locations, and technology and business models that could be used to scale business. This triggered the enterprise concept being featured everywhere, from enterprise-level, enterprise solutions to enterprise risk management and enterprise resource planning. Measuring and justifying capital outlay through ROI (Return on Investment) gained traction, while consumers emphasised sustainability, by demanding corporations to be environmentally and socially responsible.

The Buzzword Index: What the Data Says

Each decade's buzzwords reflected the dominant business priorities of the time - from corporate restructuring and strategic alignment in the 1980s, to process improvement, quality management and customer focus in the 1990s. The 2000s surged ahead with internet technology, digital adoption, data-driven decision-making and enterprise-scaling thinking.

We did a comparison of various top AI models to see the most frequently used business buzzwords and trends in the last five years, and what this reveals about where strategy and business priorities are heading. 

GROK came up as being mostly annoyed with several words where the meaning has been watered down due to overuse (and under-delivery!). Claude.AI was slightly less bothered but also highlighted that 94% of professionals regularly hear and/or use some annoying buzzwords, showing just how pervasive corporate jargon has become. Google’s Gemini was a bit more “matter of fact” in discussing C-suite lingo. HubSpot’s Breeze made the buzzword list short and sweet, then offered to give quick, plain-English definitions and example sentences for each, followed by offering to suggest the 5–10 buzzwords that are most relevant for our space and how to use or avoid them when communicating with clients. ChatGPT was much more detailed, providing buzzwords, their meaning, why they matter, as well as the pros and cons of using them. 

The common buzzwords could be grouped into themes across all of these AI models: 

Business Buzzwords: Value or Vice

Buzzwords may have a significant role to play, signalling to clients and consumers where your business is heading, reflecting change and aligning with frameworks and investments.

Using specific buzzwords can signal whether organisations are modern, aware and responsive - useful when it comes to branding, recruitment or investor relations. It can also reflect changing strategies and approaches to how we work. Some buzzwords also come with frameworks and metrics, like ESG reporting, CX metrics or AI governance - shaping how businesses are organising themselves. 

When used correctly, they can bring benefits through: 

• Providing clarity of vision, helping to align stakeholders around shared priorities
• Improving morale - when employees see commitment to wellbeing, purpose and flexibility, it often boosts engagement with leaders
• Competitive advantage through early adoption of AI, new technologies and automation
• Agility - encouraging readiness to change, inspiring innovation. 

But use these buzzers sparingly: 

• Overuse or vagueness makes them lose substance rather than displaying concrete action
• Implementation gaps may prevail over actual tangible progress - saying “AI-first” is easier than actually doing what a solid AI strategy demands: process, compliance, governance and training
• Beware of the backlash - paying lip service can hurt your firm’s credibility 
• Communication complexities - jargon fatigue can lead to misunderstandings if it is not clear what the buzzword means in your specific context.  

Beyond the buzz lies a deeper challenge: Are we really innovating or simply narrating another story?

Are You Selling a Vision or a Voiceover? 

If the proposals are promising but the buzzwords are simply boilerplate, clients become skeptical - hearing the same trendy terms without tangible results will erode your most valuable and fragile asset:  trust.  Real innovation doesn’t live in the pitch deck; it lives in decisions, systems, and outcomes. If your vision isn’t showing up in day-to-day execution, it’s just storytelling.

In our next post, we break this down with The Reality Check: Seven signs you’re actually leading and not just following.

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