Mcdonald's Achieves AI Apotheosis With A Generative AI Christmas Ad...

I don't know either, but I doubt very much they learned not to do it again.

'The holidays suck ass and we'll be lucky to get out of them with our health and sanity intact, but at least we can shove some crappy fast food into our slack pieholes before the existential darkness claims us': That's the premise of a new McDonald's holiday ad that, as reported by the BBC, was quickly pulled after it went out because not only was it utterly miserable, it was also made entirely with generative AI.

"McDonald's unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I've seen this year—worse than Coca-Cola's," Theodore McKenzie of 80 Level wrote on X. "Fully AI-generated, that's one. Looks repulsive, that's two. More cynical about Christmas than the Grinch, that's three."

And then, in the true spirit of the holidays, he added, "I don't wanna be the only one suffering, take a look."

McDonald's unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I've seen this year – worse than Coca-Cola's.Fully AI-generated, that's one. Looks repulsive, that's two. More cynical about Christmas than the Grinch, that's three.I don't wanna be the only one suffering, take a look: pic.twitter.com/lRYODLkkBJDecember 6, 2025

Some users had slightly more pointed thoughts about the whole thing.

The backlash was so furious that it not only forced the ad off the internet, but also a reported defense of the spot made by Melanie Bridge, CEO of The Sweetshop, the production company that actually made the thing. Fortunately, Futurism caught some bangin' quotes.

"For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors," Bridge wrote.

"We generated what felt like dailies—thousands of takes—then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production. This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film."

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Source: PC Gamer