I still have my textbook from almost 20 years ago: "Artificial Intelligence: A modern" by Peter Norvig. Lots of topics covered as AI there that surely do not meet your definition.
AI is buzzword bingo and has been since introduced to computing in the 60's.
Just clasify the method used as what it is to a supposedly educated crowd. There is no need to classify a marketing term. And yes, for that book it's also just marketing.
I've relented, I accept now that AI is an umbrella term to represent many different methods, algorithms and technologies.
Modern day usage of AI is heavily conflated with generative AI such as LLMs and Text-to-* generation systems.
My preference, as someone who works in a very closely relate field to the article, is that science should stay away from non-specific terms like AI. I've had my director approach me seeking grant ideas on using AI. It didn't go down very well when I suggested we should try to use image recognition to automate data entry. That seemed 'old', they wanted a chat bot to do... something.
I still have my textbook from almost 20 years ago: "Artificial Intelligence: A modern" by Peter Norvig. Lots of topics covered as AI there that surely do not meet your definition.