Despite the growing presence of AI in consumer goods, customer sentiment seems to be getting more and more hostile. A study conducted by Washington State University that tested consumer reactions to different marketing copy and included products like high-end electronics, medical devices, and fintech found that material that included AI messaging tested more negatively across the board due to lower emotional trust.

Are companies just missing the mark? Lead author of the study Mesut Çiçek believes that buzzwords may be to blame. “Marketers should carefully consider how they present AI in their product descriptions,” he advised, emphasizing that they should “focus on describing the features or benefits” instead of highlighting the tech takeover.

Apple and Google have already seen the effects of failing to read the room, after the two tech giants were forced to pull high-profile ads after backlash from audiences. Over the weekend, Google released and quickly pulled an Olympics ad (watch, runtime: 1:00) for their AI offering Gemini that showed a father using the chatbot to generate a fan letter from his daughter to US runner Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone that for many seemed to take away any meaning. While back in May, Apple released their commercial for the iPad Pro (watch, runtime: 1:08), showing a large hydraulic press crushing instruments, art, arcade games, and books to reveal their new ultrathin piece of hardware powered by Apple Intelligence, causing many to object to this perceived celebration of the crushing of human creativity that AI presents.

Whatever they hoped the message would be instead exacerbated consumer fear of generative technology, which seemed to viewers to “kind of [be] destroying humanity.” It’s not about AI stealing jobs anymore, says The Verge, it’s about promoting the use of AI as a replacement for authentic connection and creation. Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post wrote that those excited by the prospect of AI taking over all our tasks, including writing report summaries, data surveys, and no doubt including creating art and music, are not just “missing the point in a spectacular manner,” but missing out on life, even the tedious bits. “This is the ride, and you’re missing it.”

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