I think AI has also become synonymous with slapdash, low effort, probably steals my data

And why shouldn't it? There are so many prominent examples of badly implemented AI solutions. It's like how China is associated with cheap copycat products even though they are perfectly capable (and do!) produce many well made, quality things.

Precisely. "We're doing this with AI" reads as "we don't care enough about this to pay a person to do it."