The Scoop: Google pulls AI ad after backlash from Olympics audiences

Another tech company has pulled an ad after public backlash.

Just months after Apple apologized for an ad that saw artistic and musical implements destroyed by a compressor to fit into an iPad, Google has now ended the run of an Olympics-themed ad meant to tout its Gemini AI model.

The ad starts out as fairly typical Olympic fare: a dad talking about his little girl who wants to be just like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, an American two-time gold medalist in the hurdles.

But then it takes an odd twist when, instead of helping the girl write her own letter to her idol, the father instead asks Gemini to write it for him.

The backlash was swift, both in the social media sphere and from conventional media. Washington Post Alexandra Petri cut right to the heart of the matter in an opinion piece:

What will these buffoons come up with next? “Gemini, propose for me”? “Gemini, tell my parents I love them”? Lying on your death bed, “Gemini, write a letter to my children saying all the things I wish I’d been able to tell them”? “What was my favorite thing about being alive?”

You’re missing it! You’re missing all of it!

Google announced Friday that it would stop running the ad.

“While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we have decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement, according to CNN.

Why it matters: Ads aren’t PR. But there are times when an ad is so bad (or so good!) that it can break through and create waves of its own. This is one of those times.

Combined with the Apple ad, which saw the tools of human creativity literally destroyed in the pursuit of a slimmer, more powerful iPad, tech companies are at a perilous juncture.

Technology is growing more powerful. It’s evolving in ways that seem unpredictable and even frightening to many regular Joes.

And yet the companies keep touting their tools as ways to outsource the best parts of life – art, the hero worship of a child – instead of the worst.

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes,” author Joanna Maciejewska wrote on X in March, neatly capturing the dichotomy between what tech companies seem to be pushing and what people (especially creatives) really want.

Google says the ad tested well, but who did they test it with? With what questions? Communicators of all kinds must step outside their bubble and look at the broader landscape in which their work exists. They need to look at where the real desire is for their products, not merely a use-case that seems flashy or makes a good ad.

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Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.