Jersey Mike’s, the submarine sandwich chain with an actor for a face, has gone public on the back of a 22-time mention of artificial intelligence (AI) in its IPO documents. The company can’t claim to sell actual AI products; it sells sandwiches. Yet AI still found a way into its investor-risk warnings, where it’s mentioned only to be waved off with vague language about ‘beginning to use AI Technologies.’

Despite this, the S-1 document is rife with references to software and data, used 52 and 112 times respectively. This raises questions about how much of a role AI plays in the business compared to its marketing.

The company’s AI risk warning seems more like corporate boilerplate, similar to warnings faced by other tech firms. For instance, Starbucks’ half-baked AI inventory system that couldn’t count was recently scrapped. Yet weather and lightning, which could reasonably threaten a sandwich shop, are barely mentioned.

In the grand scheme of things, the risk of an AI catastrophe for Jersey Mike’s is about as likely as a Texas sub shop getting hit by lightning – something that actually happened in 2021. But it’s worth noting that weather was only mentioned five times in their IPO documents.