The 2024 Paris Olympics has been plagued with controversies even before it began and the latest offender is the Google AI Gemini ad. The backlash the Google AI ad is receiving is not unexpected—the public has held a very strong opinion on the use and misuse of AI, however, it’s hard to tell if the resistance is solely due to the messaging of this particular advertisement or due to the showcase of AI in general. There are two separate issues at play here, neither of which has anything to do with the other mishaps at the Olympics. The Google Gemini ad that started all this chaos has been pulled by the company, but the damage is already done.

Google AI letter controversy

Image: Google Dear Sydney ad

What Was the Google AI Gemini Ad About?

In order to capitalize on some of the attention being directed at the Olympics, Google has released a Gemini AI ad that shows a father who wants to help his daughter write a fan letter to her favorite Olympic athlete, sprinter and hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Titled Dear Sydney, the advertisement shows the father narrating how he thought his daughter was following in his footsteps, but he realizes that another athlete has been inspiring his daughter to push past her limits. 

In order to honor the athlete and send her a letter to show her the impact she’s having on the young girl, the father turns to the Gemini AI to help write the letter. The father says “I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right, so Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is and be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record one day. (She says sorry, not sorry.)”

He’s specific about what he wants and cares about his daughter enough to help her with the fan letter. At first glance, the Google AI Gemini ad sounds great, looks great, and is drizzled with just the right amount of Google’s features such as their search capabilities and AI Overviews. But when you take a moment to think about how inauthentic it is to use an AI bot to tell someone they’re inspiring, that’s when the cracks in the strategy start to show. 

AI ad Olympics controversy

What is the Controversy About the Olympic AI Ad Really About?

The Google Gemini AI ad has a lot of things going for it starting with the wholesome exposition by the father in the beginning. A parent’s support for their child’s ambitions will never stop being touching. There is also the inspiring imagery of representation in sports, and how it serves as the turning point for a whole new generation of athletes.

You can also talk about the celebration of women in sports and the greater emphasis we’ve seen on their hard work this year with Caitlin Clark bringing attention to the WNBA, Ilona Maher boosting the support for the women’s rugby team, and Simone Biles shining as always in the gymnastic category. This list doesn’t cover all of the athletes making waves but you see the point—Google touched on a lot of different “key” topics with their Gemini AI ad.

What they failed to see, and what prompted the AI letter controversy, is the inhuman approach to paying tribute to those who inspire us by offloading the work to an AI that has never been inspired by anything. The Google AI ad backlash is extensive as people across the globe have voiced their opinions on how strange it is for a company to overshadow the human experience with technology. 

The Google Gemini ad for the Olympics is out of touch with the entire purpose of the sporting event being a showcase of the unlimited potential of humans and their ability to work hard at something. If a fan saw and appreciated the athlete, they would most likely put in the effort to write the letter expressing their admiration themselves. 

A father’s attempt to show his daughter the easy way out by getting AI to write a letter for her has not resonated well with fans in the slightest. While the ad tries to downplay the idea of the AI being “better” by suggesting the father only needs a draft to get started, the minor detail isn’t enough to put anyone’s mind at ease. No matter how you choose to look at it, the Gemini AI ad is a big misstep for Google, and this comes just as we began to appreciate the company for its other policy on the misuse of AI.

Google AI ad backlash

Would Viewers Have Accepted a Different Google Gemini AI Ad?

The Olympics-centered Google Gemini ad isn’t the only one that has belittled human creativity and potential recently. The Apple iPad Pro ad had nothing to do with AI, but it still managed to represent the shattering of all objects that have ever inspired or represented creativity, replacing them with an underwhelming but thin iPad. It’s safe to say that the audience didn’t like that ad either, and said as much wherever they could online. 

The AI letter controversy aside, was there a way that the Google Gemini AI ad could have been framed better to appeal to the masses, or would any representation of AI have fallen flat on its hypothetical face? More often than not, in the real world, any attempts to force AI have been met with some resistance, whether you look at Microsoft’s failed AI Recall feature or the poor performance of all the AI hardware being released to the market. Advertising surrounding the potential of AI is not appealing no matter how “inspiring” tech companies try to portray it as.

Perhaps there was a way for the Google Gemini AI ad to be framed better, an approach that wouldn’t have generated such a negative response. Microsoft’s Game Day commercial for the Copilot AI companion in February also generated some negative attention for showcasing how people who are told they “can’t do something” then have AI do it for them. However, the response to the ad was not nearly as bad as the scale of the Olympics AI ad controversy Google has been facing. Perhaps their advertisement was different enough to show the AI as a tool rather than the solution itself. All in all, it doesn’t appear that there’s really a good way to advertise AI.

Tech Companies Are Only Getting Started With AI

All this negative attention does not mean that tech executives are about to stop pushing AI. Makers of the upcoming Friend AI necklace believe you can actually replace human connection with AI. Meta believes that you will be satisfied with talking to an AI avatar when you reach out to your favorite content creator on Instagram. They may be right, an auto-generated response might be better than no response at all, but the dystopian picture these companies are painting is unappealing at best. 

Many writers are accepting the use of AI as a source of inspiration, musicians are considering what AI-generated music can do to cut down on production time, artists and photographers are learning how to use AI in their editing, and we as a population are growing accustomed to seeing AI everywhere. It might be time for us to acknowledge that we are working towards a future where we sit back and accept that everything will be AI-generated, but we shudder to think of what such a world will look like.

For now, the Google Gemini AI ad is available on YouTube but the company has stopped adding it to its Olympic rotation. The company told multiple outlets, “Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA. It showcases a real-life track enthusiast and her father, and aims to show how the Gemini app can provide a starting point, thought starter, or early draft for someone looking for ideas for their writing.” Their goal was a good one but they clearly missed the mark on their messaging. Alternatively, they may have had no chance of getting it right considering how people feel about their AI.

tagged in AI ad Olympics controversy, AI letter controversy, Google AI ad backlash, Google Gemini AI ad, Olympics Google Gemini ad
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