New Google commercial imagines a Declaration of Independence written with help from AI

Google released a commercial imagining the Founding Fathers using Google Workspace and AI tools to draft the Declaration of Independence, featuring Gemini and AI-generated visuals. The ad received mixed reactions, with criticism on Bluesky calling it tone-deaf and noting the limited role of AI.

Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial from Google asks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3RjZY-rSsc : What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace? With the tagline “Group project, but make it 1776,” the ad depicts a largely unseen Thomas Jefferson mid-draft when he gets a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting gets scheduled in Google Calendar and conducted remotely via Google Meet with every single attendee apparently turning their camera off? , then the whole thing is finalized with e-signatures; cue the fireworks. Of course, because this is an ad from a tech company in the year 2026, AI has a role to play. The fictionalized founders use Google’s “help me visualize” AI tool to try out different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes on the meeting, and the founders also ask the chatbot for advice before declining King George III’s document access request. The whole thing is very tongue-in-cheek at one point, Sam Adams asks, “Can we settle this over beers?” , and the AI evangelism is relatively discreet when compared to many other recent ads https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/08/super-bowl-60-ai-ads-svedka-anthropic-brands-commercials/ . And unlike that infamous Google commercial https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/28/dear-google-who-wants-an-ai-written-fan-letter/ in which a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter for his daughter, this one shies away from any suggestion that the actual text of the Declaration of Independence would be improved with AI. Perhaps the most AI-forward element of the ad is the footage itself, which to my eye has the uncanny glow of AI-generated video. While viewer comments on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3RjZY-rSsc and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/DaS1N6mFGnf/?hl=en appear to be mostly positive, you may not be surprised to learn that the response on Bluesky has been far more critical https://bsky.app/profile/carnage4life.bsky.social/post/3mptotz3knc22 . Posters declared the commercial “cringey” and “stunningly tone deaf,” and the AI angle was the biggest target — even as many users, including historian Angus Johnston https://bsky.app/profile/angus.bsky.social/post/3mptrsgpzt224 , noted that it’s “amazing how little of this is actually AI.” “Even in a corny fantasy joke, it’s impossible to make the case that AI is a useful tool for political organizing, writing, or human collaboration,” Johnston said.