Google’s latest Olympics-themed ad for its generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, Gemini, is drawing some backlash.
In the “Dear Sydney” ad, Gemini generates a letter for a dad helping his daughter write to Olympic gold medal hurdler, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The father prompts Gemini to: “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.)”
Those who didn’t appreciate the ad noted how cold an actual AI-generated fan letter would be. Linda Holmes, the host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, wrote on Bluesky: “This commercial showing somebody having a child use AI to write a fan letter to her hero SUCKS. Obviously there are special circumstances and people who need help, but as a general ‘look how cool, she didn’t even have to write anything herself!’ story, it SUCKS. Who wants an AI-written fan letter??”
Holmes went on to say that fan letters are “a great way for a kid to learn to write,” and encouraging children to use AI for writing would prevent them from learning how to improve their writing skills. “Sit down with your kid and write the letter with them!,” Holmes wrote. “I’m just so grossed out by the entire thing.”
Meanwhile, members of the Daddit subreddit on Reddit seemed to share the sentiment, with some calling the ad “disgusting” and “tone deaf” for taking creativity and personality out of communication, and for depicting a parent too lazy to teach their child how to write.
Google posted the Gemini ad to YouTube with the comments section turned off. On X, formerly Twitter, one viewer described the ad as “heartless,” while another said parents using AI this way would be “doing their child a gross disservice.”
Even though the ad shows Gemini responding with “a draft” to get the letter-writing process started, TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha pointed out that if all of McLaughlin-Levrone’s fans used Gemini as a starting point, “Sydney would just end up with a giant stack of nearly identical letters.” Still, it’s not as if big-time celebrities are known for actually reading and replying to fan mail personally; some celebrities simply outsource the job.
Google ad communications manager Alana Beale told Axios that the company believes “that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it.”
Although a different use-case, Gemini is one of the most-used AI tools at work, according to FlexOS. In May, a survey by Microsoft and LinkedIn found that three in four workers are using generative AI in the workplace.