A new Google commercial imagines the Declaration of Independence written with the help of artificial intelligence

Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new Google commercial asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?

With the tagline “Collective project, but make it 1776,” the ad depicts a largely unseen intermediate draft of Thomas Jefferson when he receives a teasing text from Ben Franklin, triggering a Google-centric collaboration. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, the meeting is scheduled in Google Calendar and conducted remotely via Google Meet (with each guest seemingly turning off their camera?), and then the whole thing is finalized with electronic signatures; Cue the fireworks.

Of course, since this is an announcement from a technology company in the year 2026, AI has a role to play. The fictional founders use Google’s “Help Me Visualize” AI tool to try out different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes about the meeting, and the founders also ask the chatbot for advice before denying a request to access King George III’s document.

The whole thing is very cynical (at one point, Sam Adams asks: “Can we settle this over a beer?”), and the AI ​​evangelism is relatively conservative compared to many other recent ads. Unlike Google’s infamous ad in which a father uses a Gemini to write an admiring letter to his daughter, this ad avoids any suggestion that the actual text of the Declaration of Independence would be improved with artificial intelligence. Perhaps the most advanced AI element of the ad is the footage itself, which to my eye has the eerie glow of AI-generated video.

While viewer feedback on YouTube and Instagram seems mostly positive, you may not be surprised to learn that the response on Bluesky has been much more critical. Posters declared the commercial “disturbing” and “astonishingly tone-deaf”, and the AI ​​angle was the biggest target – with many users, including historian Angus Johnston, even noting that “it’s surprising how little AI there is in this”.

“Even in a well-worn fictional joke, it is impossible to prove that AI is a useful tool for political organizing, writing, or human cooperation,” Johnston said.