World Cheers As Google Pulls Olympics ‘Dear Sydney’ AI Ad After Massive Backlash

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During the first few days of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, hardly a commercial break went by without viewers seeing a Google ad touting its Gemini AI.

Unfortunately, for both viewers as well as Google, the ad made a whole lot of people mad.

In the ad, a father asks Gemini AI to “help” his daughter write a letter to her hero, U.S. Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, rather than, you know, sitting down with her and letting her decide what she wants to say to the track star on her own and in her own words.

Google appeared to almost immediately realize that the Gemini ad was a miss when the company disabled the ability to leave a comment on the YouTube copy of it – something they haven’t done with any of its other recent videos on the platform.

Fast forward a couple of days and if you’ve noticed that Google’s troublesome Gemini AI ad hasn’t been in your face during Olympics broadcasts anymore, there’s a good reason for it.

Google pulled it.

They wouldn’t say why, but they did confirm to Ad Age that it would no longer be used.

“We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it,” a Google spokesperson told Ad Age before pulling the spot. “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.”

While the ad is still available on YouTube with the comments turned off, Google’s X (Twitter) post showing the commercial is still being flooded with negativity.

“I’ve seen this ad probably 30 times and it’s absolutely heartless. Using AI to write a fan letter to someone a young girl looks up to? Don’t you think it would be more meaningful coming from an actual human being?” another person wrote. “You should be ashamed Google.”

“Hey @Google… Any parent that uses AI to write a letter to an athlete for their kid instead of having the kid write their own thoughts in their own hand is doing their child a gross disservice,” read another comment, echoing the feelings of many.