Google faked Gemini AI output in Super Bowl ad

Google appears to have faked AI output in a commercial set to run during the Super Bowl. The ad shows a business owner using Gemini to write a website description, but the text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business’s website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived webpage.

Google didn’t launch Gemini until 2023, meaning Gemini couldn’t have generated the website description as depicted in the ad.

The commercial in question is part of a series of Super Bowl ads showing how small businesses around the US use Gemini AI in Google Workspace. In this particular ad, Google features the Wisconsin Cheese Mart using Gemini to write a website description for its Gouda listing.

Google’s commercial had already been under scrutiny for showing Gemini generate incorrect information. The ad originally had Gemini present copy stating that Gouda accounts for “50 to 60 percent of the world’s cheese consumption” — which is not true. Google later edited the commercial to take out the stat, while the business owner also removed it from their website.

But Google maintained that the website description was written by Gemini all along. In addition to showing Gemini “generate” the description in the commercial, Google Cloud apps president Jerry Dischler said on X that the Gouda stat was “not a hallucination,” adding that “Gemini is grounded in the Web.”

When asked why Google removed the incorrect detail from the commercial, Google spokesperson Michele Wyman told The Verge that the business owner suggested having “Gemini rewrite the product description without the stat.” Google then “updated the UI to reflect what the business would do.” But it seems the description — at least, the original one — was never written by Gemini to begin with.

The Verge reached out to Google with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.