A startup promised that their AI assistant would build you an app. But the work was actually done by human engineers.

Builder.ai , a startup backed by Microsoft, pitched itself as an AI-powered way to simplify app development. Clients chatted with the platform's signature AI assistant, Natasha, and received a functional, AI-generated app based on the information they provided. But instead of using AI technology to run the chatbot and create the app, the company hired 700 engineers in India to pose as Natasha in conversations with clients, and then to do the actual coding of the app.

The company's human-run chatbot operation is part of a larger problem in the tech industry today: An issue called " AI-washing ," when tech companies purport that their tools use AI a far greater amount th

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