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Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, asks a new ad from Google<\/a>: What if the founding fathers had access to Google Workspace?<\/p>\n Under the tagline “Group project, but make it 1776,” the ad depicts a mostly invisible Thomas Jefferson in the middle of a draft as he receives a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaborative process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting is scheduled in Google Calendar and held remotely via Google Meet (with each participant apparently turning off their camera?), and then the whole thing is completed with electronic signatures; show fireworks.<\/p>\n Of course, since this is an ad for a tech company in 2026, artificial intelligence has a role to play. The fictional founders use Google’s ‘help me visualize’ AI tool to try different animals on the national seal, Gemini takes notes on a meeting, and the founders also ask a chatbot for advice before turning down King George III’s request for access to a document.<\/p>\n It’s all very tongue-in-cheek (at one point Sam Adams asks, “Can we solve this over a beer?”), and the AI \u200b\u200bevangelism is relatively low-key compared to many other recent announcements<\/a>. And in contrast that infamous Google commercial<\/a> in which a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter for his daughter, this one eschews any suggestion that the actual text of the Declaration of Independence will be enhanced by artificial intelligence. Perhaps the most AI-driven element of the ad is the footage itself, which I think has the odd sheen of an AI-generated video.<\/p>\n While the viewer is commenting YouTube<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> seem mostly positive, you might not be surprised to learn that the response to Bluesky has been much more critical<\/a>. Posters declared the commercial “creepy” and “incredibly tone-deaf” and the AI \u200b\u200bangle was the biggest target – even with so many users including historian Angus Johnston<\/a>noted that “it’s amazing how little AI there really is.”<\/p>\n “Even in a corny science fiction joke, it’s impossible to argue that artificial intelligence is a useful tool for political organization, writing, or human cooperation,” Johnston said.<\/p>\n \n