The AI backlash is a danger for every brand now

It was a bad week for AI’s public image. The concept was booed on mention at several commencement speeches, tarnished a literary prize, drove more layoffs, and tangled local politics in a number of data-center squabbles. A hyped new book about AI’s impact on “truth” was dragged for including fake quotes made up by AI. Pope Leo XIV’s forthcoming encyclical will concern “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” Vatican News reported. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something intensify this quickly,” mused one of the researchers behind a recent poll from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, finding less than half of Americans think the country should charge ahead with AI innovation. Inevitably, this backlash-y skepticism threatens to ding big brands that, fairly or not, seem complicit in AI’s increasing ubiquity. This isn’t just a potential problem for the leading AI companies themselves (which haven’t been doing a great job of making a case for the technology’s upsides). The risk is now wider, potentially touching any brand seen using AI in dubious ways. In fact, this week also brought a small but telling example that hints at what the emerging AI-skeptical zeitgeist might portend. In a fairly innocuous post on X touting its association with Italian tennis champion Jannik Sinner, Nike wrote that the tennis superstar “can do it all,” adding, “This isn’t just history — it’s his story in the making.” Referring to the “it isn’t y, it’s z” construction, a trope of AI writing, an X user groused: “they let a GPT AI-ism through on the main Nike page?? I thought marketing teams caught this stuff by now.” This was just conjecture, and not all that convincing (writers have been using this construction long before AI), but it sparked hundreds of responses. they let a GPT AI-ism through on the main Nike page?? I thought marketing teams caught this stuff by nowhttps://t.co/INlebroUsf— 💥 (@privatemacro) May 17