David Protein founder's candy launch is full of AI typos. The brand's president says it's intentional 'rage bait.'

HallPass, the lower-calorie candy brand co-founded by David Protein and RxBar cofounder Peter Rahal and Stuffed Puffs founder Michael Tierney, launched on Monday with product images full of AI-generated typos, which President Michael Tierney told Business Insider were intentional 'rage bait' to drive top-of-funnel awareness. The brand, operating under Medici Brands, will launch in Walmart stores across the US on August 29, with Tierney promising no typos on the actual bars.

In HallPass' product shot, sugar is "suger," and package is "pacaage." The lower-calorie candy company comes from some big names in food. Its cofounders are Peter Rahal, the cofounder of David Protein https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-attia-steps-down-from-david-protein-after-epstein-emails-2026-2 and RxBar, and Michael Tierney, the founder of Stuffed Puffs https://www.businessinsider.com/stuffed-puffs-chocolate-filled-marshmallows-for-smores-2019-4 . It also operates under Medici Brands, David Protein's parent company. And yet, its Monday launch was full of AI flubs. Much of the text is a blurred garble of letters. Take the words under "peanut creme crispy waters" they were going for "wafers" . They're completely incoherent, a classic example of AI image generators' well-documented struggle to replicate text. Or there's the "…Have Fun" above the logo. The middle bar has an extra dot in the ellipsis. The bottom bar swaps an H for an N. Other images show this says "enlarged for detail." But does it really look like that? Eagle-eyed viewers called out the typos online. Casey Lewis, author of the After School newsletter, said that "copy editors have never been more important" in the age of AI. Two days after the launch, Tierney told Business Insider that the flubs were intentional. HallPass had individual images of the three bars, he said, but none of them together. In Tierney's telling, they used AI to combine the images, and immediately saw the issues. "We left them there for a little bit of internet rage bait," he said. "It's worked." Tierney pointed to the product's name, HallPass. The AI flubs https://www.businessinsider.com/bagel-shop-owner-removes-ai-social-media-marketing-2026-5 were another nod to the fact that "this is a fun brand," he said. Brands using AI in their advertising has proven risky and prone to backlash. REI was roasted for https://www.businessinsider.com/rei-backlash-ai-ad-instagram-blamed-meta-ai-tool-2026-6 its AI use after an ad showed two sets of bicycle handlebars. A bagel shop owner told Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/bagel-shop-owner-removes-ai-social-media-marketing-2026-5 how using AI in his Instagram posts tanked his Google reviews. AI pessimism https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-graduates-ai-backlash-commencement-speeches-anxiety-job-market-2026-5 is on the rise, and some commenters online took HallPass' typos as an offense. Tierney said he wasn't worried; he said that he was trying to drive some "top-of-funnel awareness" for the launch. HallPass candies will launch in Walmart stores https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-reveals-careers-in-high-demand-as-ai-reshapes-retail-2026-7 across the US on August 29. Tierney promises there won't be any typos on those bars.