Data story · Catchphrases
Which companies talk about AI the most?
We counted every “artificial intelligence” and every standalone “AI” in fifteen years of annual reports from forty household-name companies. In 2015 one of them said it. In 2025 all forty did.
Every strip on this page is a real Catchphrases strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about Catchphrases.
How to read the strips
Each strip is one company. Each band is one year’s annual report (the 10-K filed with the SEC), from 2011 on the left to 2025 on the right. Pale cream means the report never says it, amber means it comes up, and deep burnt orange means it cannot stop; a band reaches full colour at 40 mentions.
A mention is a literal match: “artificial intelligence”, or “AI” standing alone as a word, so “AIG” and “SAID” do not count. It measures how often a company writes the words, not how much it spends on the technology.
The wall arrives in 2023
Add the forty reports together and the shape is a flat start, a slow middle and then a cliff. Mentions more than doubled in a single year, from 370 to 975, and the number of companies saying it at all went from 21 to 32.
| Report year | Mentions across all 40 | Companies mentioning AI |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2 | 1 |
| 2016 | 27 | 7 |
| 2022 | 370 | 21 |
| 2023 | 975 | 32 |
| 2025 | 1,867 | 40 |
That is why most strips in the category look alike at the right-hand end. What tells them apart is the left: when the colour starts, and whether it starts gradually or all at once.
The early habit: NVIDIA
NVIDIA has the most mentions over the fifteen years, 766, and made it a habit years before anyone else. Its 2017 report has 52 mentions, when most of the forty still had none, and it never drops below 52 again.
- Never says it
- Mentions it
- Cannot stop
The cliff: AMD
The steepest climb is AMD’s. Its reports mention AI 32 times in total from 2011 to 2022, then 102 times in 2023, 153 in 2024 and 192 in 2025, the most any company in the set managed in a single year.
- Never says it
- Mentions it
- Cannot stop
First, and the one that peaked early
Adobe is the only company whose 2011 report mentions AI, once, and it does so again each year to 2014, which makes it the only strip with colour at the far left.
- Never says it
- Mentions it
- Cannot stop
IBM is the odd one out. It peaked at 36 mentions in its 2018 report, fell to between 10 and 13 a year from 2020 to 2022, just as everyone else was speeding up, and only climbed back in 2024.
- Never says it
- Mentions it
- Cannot stop
The latecomer: Apple
Apple’s reports mention AI 10 times in fifteen years, all of them from 2023 on: one, then three, then six. Its whole strip stays in the pale half of the ramp.
- Never says it
- Mentions it
- Cannot stop
Why the years are report years. Each band is the year the report’s period ends, not the year it was filed. Most companies here end their year in December, but some do not, so their bands are a few months out of step. The counts come from SEC EDGAR, which is public domain.
The other thirty-five companies are in the Catchphrases category, next to a lighter set: Owen Wilson’s “wow”, movie by movie. If you prefer your company data as money rather than words, the best-performing stocks each year are drawn the same way.
Huezle shows you one of these strips and four company names. See if you can tell an early adopter from a 2023 convert by where the colour starts.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhoneQuestions
Which company mentions AI most in its annual reports?
Across 2011 to 2025, NVIDIA, with 766 mentions in its 10-K reports. In a single year the record in this set of 40 companies is AMD’s 2025 report, with 192.
When did companies start talking about AI?
In this set, Adobe’s reports mention it every year from 2011 to 2014, but most companies start between 2016 and 2023. The big jump is 2023, when total mentions across the 40 companies went from 370 to 975.
Does Apple talk about AI in its annual report?
Rarely. Apple’s 10-K reports have no mentions of AI before 2023, then one in 2023, three in 2024 and six in 2025.
What counts as a mention?
The phrase “artificial intelligence” or “AI” standing alone as a word, anywhere in the annual report. It is a count of words, not a measure of investment.
More guides
- Owen Wilson’s “wow”, movie by movie.When Owen Wilson says “wow” in a movie, mapped in five-minute slices as strips of colour: the bursts, the long silences, and the film with five in five minutes.
- The best performing stock of the year rarely does it twice.What kind of company tops a year, and how last year’s winner does next, across ten years of about 110 household-name stocks, drawn week by week as strips of colour.
- How to read a century of presidential elections in colour.US presidential elections since 1900 drawn as strips of colour, one band per state from west to east. Learn to read the eras from four real strips.
- When did the South flip from Democrat to Republican?The Solid South in colour: how Southern states went from voting Democratic by 90 points to reliably Republican, told in four election strips from 1920 to 2024.
Now try naming one yourself.
Huezle is free on iPhone. A new puzzle every day, four categories free forever, and no account, ads or timer.