I recently set out to create a list of common U.S. business metaphors for a client who speaks impeccable English but has never lived here.
First stop was Perplexity AI. (Why do I prefer Perplexity? It’s not an embodied Nazi fanboy, like Grok, and so far I haven’t caught it making things up.)
I asked it,
What metaphors are common in U.S. business speech?
True to form, Perplexity gave me a list of 28 phrases based on metaphors that are common in U.S. business English, such as:
- Low Hanging Fruit (The metaphor likens winning quickly and easily to picking the easiest-to-reach fruit of a tree.)
- Drill Down (When you “drill down” for insights, it’s like digging a deep well to uncover precious minerals.)
- Call the Shots (A sports metaphor! When you make a key decision, it’s like calling a sports team’s next play.)
Perplexity Steps Up to Help Me with Metaphors
And then, Perplexity topped it off by telling me,
If you’d like, I can provide examples of how these metaphors are used or organize them by theme.
Of course I wanted both, so I answered with the word “both.”
In response, I got a list of eight categories (“Starting and progressing,” “Challenges and navigation,” “Planning and strategy,” etc.) into which common business metaphors often fall.
But I need…
Cute though that was, what I needed was phrases that I could actually give to my client. And when I told Perplexity that, I got back a lot of sentences like this one:
“As CEO, it’s my job to steer the ship toward our long-term goals.”
OK, that example isn’t great—don’t use AI to actually write for you!—but it’s clear and easy to understand.
What I found more interesting, though, was the next suggestion that Perplexity made.
It said,
If you like, I can combine these into a flowing sample business conversation so you can hear how multiple metaphors fit naturally together in one discussion.
Do you want me to do that next?
Last but Not Least
Again, my answer was “yes,” and Perplexity produced a pedestrian but instructive dialogue, before asking,
If you’d like, I can add even more colorful business metaphors to make the dialogue feel like a high-energy startup meeting or a polished corporate boardroom discussion.
Do you want me to make it more informal and fast-paced, or more professional and polished?
Perplexity Could Have Gone Another Way
Here’s the interesting part (well, it was interesting to me 😆):
I actually ran this trial—looking for common business phrases that embody metaphors—twice, with slight variations in the wording. And while the lists of metaphors in both trials were very similar, the paths that Perplexity led me down (because, yes, it was leading me) were very different.
In Trial #1, Perplexity kept moving me toward production design, offering first to create a chart, then a PDF for letter-sized printing, then instructions for creating an infographic, etc.
In Trial #2, as you’ve seen, it moved me down a verbal path, from concepts to examples…to more conversational examples…to an offer to customize for my desired tone and role.
Is This a Good Thing? Or Not Such a Good Thing?
I don’t know.
We’re years away from knowing whether AI’s input into how we should do our work is beneficial, or not so much.
For now, all I can say is:
- Use business phrases that derive from common metaphors sparingly;
- Don’t ask a chatbot to write actual documents for you (though brainstorming or even drafting are OK); and
- Don’t let AI lead you down the garden path.
