AI washing stocks are companies that talk about AI far more than they invest in it. The tell is simple: AI mentions in the 10-K climb while R&D stays flat. Talk is cheap. Research budgets are not. The pattern repeats every hype cycle: new buzzword, same playbook. Genuine AI companies do not need to stuff their filings. Their products do the talking.
Check it yourself. Pull two years of 10-Ks from SEC EDGAR, count the AI mentions, and compare against R&D spend. A 100% jump in mentions with no R&D growth is a red flag, not a green one. Two filings, one subtraction, one ratio. That is the entire forensic toolkit.
GPTTicker automates the check with an AI-wash score for 499 S&P 500 companies, built from mention counts, year-over-year change, and genuine AI signals found in each filing. Scores update as new filings land, so a company cannot coast on last year's story.
Sources: SEC EDGAR
When the talk grows faster than the budget, walk away.