Google's Cringey AI Olympics Commercial Is Backfiring in a Big Way

Google is facing a backlash over an Olympics-themed AI ad that critics find tone-deaf. "Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is," the narrator of the July 26 ad asks Google's AI assistant, Gemini. (The man's daughter reveres Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.) He continues: "And be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record one day." Beneath triumphant music, the ad then shows the proprietary chatbot drafting a letter to the Olympian--or, as the ad puts it, offering "a little help from Gemini." The criticism followed soon after. "As a general 'look how cool, she didn't even have to write anything herself!' story, it SUCKS," Linda Holmes, a pop culture correspondent at NPR, wrote. "Who wants an AI-written fan letter?" Shelly Palmer, a Syracuse University media professor, deemed it in a blog post as "one of the most disturbing commercials I've ever seen." Meanwhile, TechCrunch editor Anthony Ha remarked in a recent article: "It's hard to think of anything that communicates heartfelt inspiration less than instructing an AI to tell someone how inspiring they are." People on Reddit don't seem to like it either. It's worth noting that another part of the ad, which depicts Gemini being used to help the narrator train his daughter better, hasn't really caught much flak--suggesting that critics are less concerned about people using AI for mundane tasks such as searching for information or generating ideas, and are more focused on how the software could corrupt something as innocent as a child writing a personal letter to her hero. Nor has another Olympics-adjacent AI ad, this one from Microsoft, faced nearly as much online sniping. It, too, tugs at heartstrings, but the use-cases Microsoft pitches in it aren't nearly as intimate: summarizing morning calls, for instance, or analyzing data. Marketing and media outlet The Drum reports that Google developed and produced its ad in-house. Google did not respond to a request for comment from Inc. The firm is already the "official search AI partner of Team USA" for the Paris Olympics, with various AI features set to be integrated into NBCUniversal's coverage of the event. Despite the drama, AI has proved quite lucrative for Google, which saw steady growth last quarter amid a pivot toward generative AI technology, including in Google's marquee search engine. The blowback here is reminiscent of another recent advertising snafu from a tech giant: Apple's "Crush!" ad from earlier this year. Both ads demonstrate that consumers bristle when massive tech corporations co-opt intimate human experiences to shill some new product. All in all, the backlash to the company's new ad suggests that there still are many pitfalls for firms that want to market AI products to the general public. People remain skeptical of the technology even under the best of circumstances, and touching on particularly sentimental or heartfelt themes--especially in relation to something as emotionally charged and distinctly human as the Olympics--seems to be asking for trouble.