--- title: "Google’s Super Bowl Ad Accidentally Shows Its AI Simply Plagiarizing Existing Web Copy" description: "Google either faked its new cheese-centric Super Bowl ad for its AI, or prompted it to plagiarize existing web copy. Either way: bad!" date: "2025-02-08" modified: "2025-02-08" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/google-super-bowl-ad-ai-plagiarizing" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "ai" - "cheese" - "gemini" - "Google" --- # Google’s Super Bowl Ad Accidentally Shows Its AI Simply Plagiarizing Existing Web Copy ![Google either faked its new cheese-centric Super Bowl ad for its AI, or prompted it to plagiarize existing web copy. Either way: bad!]() *\Image: Google\* Last week, Google released a Super Bowl ad that showed off its AI model, Gemini, generating product descriptions for a local Wisconsin cheese mart. The ad [quickly drew online scrutiny](), as Gemini had seemingly generated an erroneous fact about the purported worldwide fervor for gouda; it said that gouda accounts for "50 to 60 percent" of all global cheese consumption, and as [an expert told *The Verge*](), that simply isn't true. Google executives defended the accuracy of the statistic at first, [before quietly editing YouTube version of the ad]() to correct the error (and seemingly running afoul of Google-owned YouTube's policies in the process.) But as it turns out? Gemini appears not to have even generated the product description at all. Or, if it did cook up the test, it did so by fully plagiarizing the cheese mart's existing web copy, which was published years before Gemini was even released or AI was even making much of a splash. As[ *the Verge* first reported](), though the Google ad is crafted in a way that seemingly shows Gemini generating entirely new web copy for the business to use, [archived versions]() of the cheese mart's website show that the Wisconsin business has been using the *exact same product description* since at least 2020. Here's the archived webpage: ![]() And here's the original text that appeared in the Super Bowl ad, as [nabbed by]() travel blogger Nate Hake. ![]() OpenAI's ChatGPT wasn't [released]() until November 2022, and the earliest consumer-facing iteration of Google's Gemini, the text-generating chatbot it called Bard, wasn't [launched until early 2023](). Needless to say, the situation is beyond bizarre. Either Google faked the ad entirely, or prompted its AI to generate the web page's existing copy word-for-word, or the AI was prompted to come up with original copy and instead copied the old version. In the publishing industry, that's referred to as "plagiarism." Whatever the case, it's a bad look — not to mention just incredibly odd. Why didn't Google just trust its own technology, which it's currently [jamming into]() [each and every product]() it possibly can, for a simple Super Bowl slot? When we asked Google about the retroactive editing, a spokesperson for the search giant confirmed that the ad was altered after Google took the time to consult with the cheese mart owner. "After the question came up about the Gouda stat, we spoke with the owner of the Wisconsin Cheese Mart to ask him how he would handle it," said the spokesperson. "Following his suggestion to have Gemini rewrite the product description without the stat, we updated the UI to reflect what the business would do." And yet! The altered ad isn't entirely different. Only the first two sentences were changed, meaning that half of the allegedly AI-generated copy was *still written by a human*, years before e-commerce shops would've gotten their hands on Gemini. We've reached out to Google for comment, but didn't hear back by the time of publishing. **More on Google's AI vision:** [*Google Is Stuffing Annoying Ads Into Its Terrible AI Search Feature*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()