It's generally perfectly safe to ignore products whose main purpose is to ride some hype wave.

Who said anything about the product's purpose? Excessive use of the term "AI" is a decision of marketing departments, and happens entirely downstream of product design.

The same product could be produced five years ago or today, and the one produced five years ago would not be described as having "AI features", while the one produced today would.

(You can check for yourself: look at the online product listing for any mature "smart" device that got a new rev in the last three years. The Clapper would be described as an "AI" device today.)