250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Google’s new commercial asks: “What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?”
With the tagline “Group Project, But Let’s Make It 1776,” the ad depicts a mostly invisible mid-draft Thomas Jefferson receiving a nagging email from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, meetings are scheduled in Google Calendar, conducted remotely via Google Meet (everyone seems to have their cameras off?), and everything is completed with an e-signature. Fireworks signal.
Of course, this is an ad for a tech company in 2026, so AI will have a role to play. The fictional founders use Google’s “Help Me Visualization” AI tool to try out different animals for the coat of arms, Gemini takes notes about meetings, and the founders ask a chatbot for advice before turning down King George III’s request for document access.
The whole thing is very tongue-in-cheek (at one point Sam Adams asks, “Can we fix this with a beer?”), and the AI evangelism is relatively modest compared to many other recent ads. And unlike that infamous Google commercial in which a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter to his daughter, this commercial avoids any suggestion that AI will improve the actual wording of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps the most AI-infused element of this ad is the video itself, which to my eyes has an eerie glow that makes it seem like an AI-generated video.
While viewer comments on YouTube and Instagram seem to be mostly positive, you might not be surprised to learn that the reaction on Bluesky has been far more critical. Posters declared the commercial “disgusting” and “shockingly tone-deaf,” with the AI angle being the biggest target – even though many users, including historian Angus Johnston, pointed out that “it’s surprising there’s actually no AI in this.”
“It’s impossible to make the case that AI is a useful tool for political organizing, writing, or human collaboration, even when it comes to run-of-the-mill fantasy jokes,” Johnston said.
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