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The story
Grift, Inc. is a free, public, sourced database of how companies use artificial intelligence to extract more from their own customers and workers, paired with a book of the same name by Sotiris Spyrou. Every case is tied to a court filing, a regulator action, or investigative journalism. The argument is blunt: AI did not invent corporate grift, it industrialised it. Where Cory Doctorow named the pattern, this assembles the case files that ground it.
Quotable
“AI didn't invent corporate grift. It industrialised it. The same playbook that made everything slightly worse now runs at machine speed, and most people feel it long before they can name it.”
“An algorithm that denies a medical claim in 1.2 seconds is not a glitch. It is a business decision someone signed off on. The database exists so those decisions stay on the record.”
“Every company named gets its strongest defence, and a right of reply. This is a record, not a rant.”
Cases on the record
Specific, sourced, and in active litigation (allegations unless resolved by a court):
Amazon
The FTC alleges Amazon ran a secret pricing algorithm, internally codenamed Project Nessie, that raised prices to test whether competitors would follow, then held them high when they did, allegedly extracting more than a billion dollars from customers.
Cigna
A federal class action alleges Cigna used an algorithm called PXDX to batch-deny around 300,000 claims in two months at an average of 1.2 seconds per claim, with physicians signing denials without reviewing the records.
UnitedHealthcare
A class action alleges UnitedHealthcare used an AI tool, nH Predict, as a hard cap on post-acute care for Medicare Advantage patients, with roughly 90% of appealed denials overturned, cutting vulnerable seniors off from care.
About the author
Sotiris Spyrou is a B2B marketing and AI strategist who has spent decades watching how corporate decisions get made, and who got angry enough about the AI accelerant to spend two years building the Grift, Inc. case files. He is the founder of Verity AI, a responsible-AI and search consultancy, and writes on how technology reshapes business and what it costs the people on the other side of it. He lives in the United Kingdom.
Available for interview and commentary on:
- /How AI is used in pricing, hiring, and claims decisions
- /Antitrust and algorithmic price coordination
- /Consumer harm and dark patterns
- /AI in healthcare claim denials
- /Doctorow's "enshittification" and what comes after it
- /The business decisions behind the technology
Interviews & enquiries
Sotiris Spyrou is based in the United Kingdom and available for interview, podcasts, and written commentary. Email hello@spspyrou.com.
Media kit
Title: Grift, Inc.: How AI Got Weaponised by the Worst People in Business
Edition: Volume 1: The Case Files
Author: Sotiris Spyrou (founder, Verity AI)
The book: Amazon
The database: griftinc.com/cases
The case database is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 — quote and build on it with attribution.