Google’s Olympics Ad Controversy: A Lesson in Misreading the Room

Google is not winning any gold medals for its Olympics ads this year. After days of backlash, the company decided to pull its controversial “Dear Sydney” ad from Olympic coverage. The 60-second ad featured a father using Google’s Gemini AI to write a fan letter on behalf of his daughter to her Olympic idol, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. This premise, intended to be heartwarming, took a turn when the father opted to use AI instead of encouraging his daughter to write the letter herself. The ad's intention was to showcase the capabilities of AI, but it missed the mark by undermining the value of personal, heartfelt communication. Something that critics of AI have warned would happen if more and more people adopted AI.