“I’m trying to find holiday gifts for my sisters. I open a bunch of tabs, I want my wife’s advice.”
That’s Browser Company CEO, Josh Miller, in his company’s latest ad for its new AI browser, Dia. Consulting your spouse to find gifts for your siblings is a pure — and dare I say, sweet — thing to do with a browser. But the new product he’s showcasing is replacing Arc, a beloved browser that put Miller’s company on the map. Not everyone is happy about the Browser Company’s pivot from Arc to AI browsing, and this latest commercial inadvertently explains why.
Instead of talking to his wife, Miller talks to his AI chatbot and asks the AI to talk to his wife for him.
“Hi, Valerie, I hope you’re doing well,” said the AI chatbot, posing as Miller, in an email to his wife. “I came across a few interesting products on Amazon …” it continued. “Best, Josh.”
The email feels more like something you’d write to a distant work colleague, rather than the way you’d speak with a loved one you see every day. While it’s not an inappropriate message, it’s cold and could’ve been sent to anyone.
This example from the Browser Company was the latest AI ad that told a different story about the technology than it intended — but perhaps a truer one. It strikes the same sensitive nerve that so many other AI advertisements have in the last year. In trying to promote AI, tech companies can’t help but show how it removes us from the very activities that make us human.
Of course, Miller could (and probably should) have customized the prompt to be warmer and address his wife as such, but that’s missing the larger point.
Miller didn’t really talk to his wife in this case. The AI browser took a genuine act of human kindness and turned the exchange into something that feels impersonal — largely because it is. AI is further abstracting what it means to connect. At one point, connection meant talking in person; then, around the turn of the century, it migrated to texts sent over the internet. Now humans are starting to experiment with using AI to talk with each other, and in some cases, just talking to AI — removing the need to connect with a human altogether.
You could say I’m cherry-picking this ad, but it’s a story that tech companies keep accidentally telling over and over again. This part of the ad was likely intended to show how Dia could retrieve links from multiple web pages and understand their context — an impressive feat for an AI system these days.
But this was yet another example of how generative AI can reduce our humanity.
Consider Google’s ad earlier this year, where a father and daughter used Gemini to create an AI-generated fan letter to their favorite Olympian. The company later pulled the ad after facing backlash for taking a sweet father-daughter exchange and automating it away.
Or maybe you remember how Apple unveiled its AI features at WWDC this year: showing how you can go up to a stranger’s dog, point your iPhone at it, and have Apple Intelligence tell you what breed it is. Many people pointed out that you could have just asked the stranger what type of dog they have, and maybe you would have found a friend alongside the dog’s breed.
Months earlier, Apple apologized for an ad it ran where the company quite literally crushed objects representing human creativity, in favor of an iPad. It wasn’t an ad for AI, but it had the same effect: technology that reduces our humanity.
The most extreme example of these AI ads came from an AI startup called Friend. The startup released a promotional video showing how lonely young people could have a virtual companion in the startup’s AI device that they wear around their neck, instead of talking to others.
Uncomfortably honest
While these AI ads feel dystopian, there’s something about them that also feels honest. These ads represent the ways people are actually using AI for today, even though it’s unsettling when it’s demonstrated on your screen.
Some of the most common use cases of AI today are AI-generated art and AI companions. The former is usually a pretty low-stakes, creative task such as creating a picture or a short song. The latter can be surprisingly valuable: People are using chatbots to learn about things or talk through personal problems, much like they would with an intelligent or sympathetic friend.
Art and companionship both feel very central to the human experience, and the fact that AI is being used for both of those things today is a reality some find uncomfortable to acknowledge.
But for every dystopian AI ad that stirs social media users into a frenzy, there are thousands of AI advertisements that fly under the radar. Why? Because most ads for AI mean nothing at all. Lots of companies have resorted to painting AI as this amorphous, magical children’s book character with no specific use case, and yet, implying that it can do almost anything.
Here’s some examples of odd AI billboards seen around San Francisco:
“Intelligence so big, you’d swear it was from Texas,” said one.
“Adapt your workforce at the speed of AI,” said another.
“AI that talks to cars and talks to wildlife,” said a third.
“Geminiiiiiiiiiice,” said yet another.
See what I mean? I have no idea what these things do, and yet, it all feels inoffensive, vaguely describes AI in a magical way, and gets the product in front of my face.
Maybe that’s the point.
This banal tapestry of AI advertisements depicts the industry more accurately than any one company can. Most companies don’t really know what AI is good for, and the ways people use AI today are somewhat discomfiting, automating many of the very tasks that make us human.
You might wonder why companies aren’t making the obvious AI ads: AI does your boring job so you can spend more time at the beach, with your friends and family, or pursuing your passions. That’s what Zoom’s CEO laid out as his vision for AI, and it’s probably the most optimistic outcome we’ve seen someone describe.
Perhaps the reason we’re not seeing more tech companies promise that future is because AI is not ready to do your job. There’s also a conflicting vision there: If AI can do some of your job, couldn’t it also replace you altogether? While it may be a while before AI can actually do your job, it seems most companies are steering clear of that message altogether.
I can’t say what the “right way” to be promoting AI is right now, but I do think the status quo for AI ads is objectively strange. Whereas previous generations of technology promised to liberate us, connect us, and make us smarter, the overarching promise of AI is still unclear. If companies are looking for another uplifting message to sell their software with, automating core aspects of the human experience ain’t it.