This wasn’t just corporate shills, though there were plenty of them. Despite the fact that AI has been used in all ATS platforms extensively for years now, clowns would climb down from the rafters to tell you how absurd it was that AI was being used anywhere.

I wonder why this propaganda op was so important, and why it was so successful?

By the way, I have firsthand knowledge of this, and yes ATSes and related systems (and hiring managers) use AI all over the place to sort, reject and classify candidates.