McDonald's
More and more companies have felt the need to harness artificial intelligence for no real reason aside from being able to say they did so, and McDonald’s became the latest multinational corporation to get in on the action with a commercial that was whipped up for the holiday season. However, it didn’t stay up for long after being greeted with almost universal disdain.
At this point, there’s no denying artificial intelligence is here to stay.
Some of the companies that have collectively poured close to a trillion dollars into the technology over the past few years have achieved borderline “Too Big To Fail” status due to their efforts to inject A.I. into virtually every major industry, although there are still plenty of questions concerning whether or not it’s actually worth the investment.
You don’t have to be an A.I. evangelist to admit it has the potential to make many facets of life easier for people around the world. However, it’s also hard not to be worried about the well-documented shortcomings of a form of technology that has plenty of room for improvement, and it’s very easy to argue the potential negatives outweigh the positives it brings to the table.
That’s especially true when it comes to companies that have used A.I. as an excuse to cut jobs and freeze hirings while turning to machines to perform the work it previously relied on humans to do, and McDonald’s is the latest to cave to some backlash after it failed to stick the landing with a holiday ad.
McDonald’s took down an A.I.-generated ad that did not get the reception it was hoping for
In 2024, Coca-Cola decided to embrace A.I. for its annual holiday commercial, and it doubled down this year in spite of the largely negative reception it was greeted with.
According to the BBC, McDonald’s Netherlands division decided to take a page out of that playbook for an A.I. ad of its own with the help of The Sweetshop, a marketing firm that whipped up a 45-second spot of refined slop inspired by a “Most Terrible Time of the Year” theme.
McDonald’s unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year – worse than Coca-Cola’s.
Fully AI-generated, that’s one. Looks repulsive, that’s two. More cynical about Christmas than the Grinch, that’s three.
I don’t wanna be the only one suffering, take a look: pic.twitter.com/lRYODLkkBJ
— Theodore McKenzie (@realTedMcKenzie) December 6, 2025
The general sentiment concerning the reaction to the commercial can be boiled down to “More like The Most Terrible Ad of the Year,” and the CEO of the firm didn’t do themselves any favors with the fairly delusional statement they released while attempting to defend its merits, saying:
“For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors,
“We generated what felt like dailies—thousands of takes—then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production. This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film…AI didn’t make this film. We did.”
That sleepless marathon ended up being all for naught, as the ad was taken down from the McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel on Tuesday before it issued a statement of its own, describing the commercial as an “important learning” experience concerning “the effective use of AI”.
Good job, good effort.