SubwayTakes, Jimmy Fallon and the Jonas Brothers may not be enough for Google to attract AI sceptics

So what do you do? If you’re Google, the answer apparently is: everything. 

On Wednesday, to promote its new range of AI-enhanced Pixel devices, Alphabet surely broke the record for the most celebrity and influencer endorsements packed into a single hour. Expect this to become the norm as stuffy tech companies struggle to explain their artificial-intelligence offerings to an increasingly sceptical public.

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This is the other side of the AI race: the effort to gain the attention of those not avidly following tech news to explain what AI actually does and why it’s worth paying for. If these tools are ever going to be worth the cost of developing them, they’ll need to be used by everyone from your little brother to your grandmother. 

In Google’s case, the task is doubly difficult: It needs to persuade people to switch from their iPhones to the very capable but comparatively deeply unpopular Pixel. “They need to go beyond the techie," said tech analyst Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies.

To achieve that, Google brought in The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who “interviewed" Google executive Rick Osterloh (they had teleprompters over their shoulders) and then later riffed with Adrienne Lofton, Google’s head of global brand marketing, about the new devices. A flurry of cameos that followed says everything about the challenge of marketing AI.

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Google had Formula 1 driver Lando Norris film a promo with basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo to promote using AI to learn a new sport. It hired Alex Cooper, host of Call Her Daddy, the most famous podcaster you can book without causing controversy, to demonstrate the AI-assisted camera “coach." Brooklyn-based street photographer Andre D. Wagner was paid to go out and take pictures with the Pixel’s new camera to show off performance in low light. Mexican social media influencer and musician Karen Polinesia was used to demonstrate live translation tools. 

Kareem Rahma, host of the social media SubwayTakes video series, filmed a version of his show in which the ‘take’ was that the new Google earbuds are great. For fitness, Google brought in Cody Rigsby, one of those Peloton instructors who have gained a cult following.

Another basketball star, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, was on video selling Google’s new AI performance coach. Oh, and the Jonas Brothers were paid to use Pixel to record their latest music video (you can tell). 

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Celebrity endorsements are nothing new, of course, and you might even say that many of those involved aren’t all that famous, at least not to you (or me, frankly). 

But then that’s not how celebrity works these days. You can no longer sign up a couple of megastars, have them drink Pepsi and get into most homes in the world. The goal for Google’s AI marketing team, indeed any marketing team, is to dive into online interest communities, some extremely niche, to flog AI. You would be hard-pressed to speak to more demographics than Google did with this event.  

The problem with all these cameos, of course, is authenticity, or lack thereof. Few will truly think that Steph Curry is turning to Google for help to become a better basketball player. And you certainly can’t convince me that the SubwayTakes guy genuinely thinks Google’s earbuds, which require you to flick your head up like a nervous tick to answer a call, are in any way cool. Show me the next picture of Jimmy Fallon looking at his smartphone, and I’ll bet you it’s an iPhone. (Tim Cook was invited on to Fallon’s real talk show.) 

Watching the lineup at Google’s event, I was reminded of that infamous 2013 tweet from singer Alicia Keys, who had just been announced as BlackBerry’s “global creative director." Under her post promoting the company were the words: “Sent using Twitter for iPhone." 

Influencer audiences have only become smarter since then: They know when their favourite creators are being sincere and when they’re just paying the bills. Still, as I write this, the views for Google’s launch on YouTube were at 5 million. That, and the press that follows, may be money well spent. 

The needle could move, and Google’s AI features might reach a new and important audience. Or perhaps consumers will see it as yet more evidence of the seemingly unlimited budget for pushing AI onto them as quickly as possible, using every trick in the book. ©Bloomberg

The author is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist.