Google Pulls AI Ad After Failing to Read the Room

It’s getting harder and harder to find a technology product that isn’t touting its use of AI — even if precisely what it’s using AI for isn’t all that well-defined. Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) is its own entry into the the AI chat realm, a competitor to the likes of ChatGPT. And it’s not surprising that Google would launch an Olympics-themed ad campaign during the Summer Olympics to promote its latest initiative. Plenty of companies spend big to get the word out about their products at the Olympics, after all.

Unfortunately for Google, the centerpiece of that promotion — an ad in which a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter from his daughter to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone — was talked about for its alienating effects as opposed to its appeal. And now, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Alex Weprin, Google has decided to pull the ad from Olympics telecasts.

One spokesperson for the company told The Hollywood Reporter, “While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we have decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation.”

If you’re reading this with a sense of deja vu, there’s a good reason why: this is all very similar to the backlash to an Apple commercial for the iPad in which countless artistic instruments were crushed into oblivion. That also ended up with the company behind the ad opting to pull it and, in this case, issuing an apology as well.

Fortune Crowns Super Bowl Champion…. of the Commercials

Each 30-second spot runs about $4 million, but this one was worth the price.

There are genuinely interesting and useful things that AI can do; there are also insidious ways to use it and aspects of it that put people’s jobs and incomes at risk. And at a time when AI features are being distributed whether or not people want them — see also: Meta’s AI search functionality, which there’s no way to turn off — large tech companies are running the risk of trying a little too hard and facing a backlash.

Or, to put it another way, something that’s essentially a more advanced version of Clippy saying, “It looks like you’re writing a letter” does not scream “essential breakthrough technology” to most people. Will this experience qualify as a lesson learned? We’ll see what the next frustrating tech ad campaign ends up being.