“Soulless and ingenuine”: McDonald’s drops AI-generated holiday commercial and yes, everyone hates it

An AI-generated McDonald's commercial has AI fanatics and anti-AI crusaders locked in debate once again.

The commercial was originally released as part of a holiday-themed campaign for McDonald's in the Netherlands and spearheaded by agency TBWA\NEBOKO.

"December is often presented as perfect, while the reality is usually far more chaotic," the agency wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post. "That truth shaped our new AI-driven campaign for @mcdonaldsnl, turning It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year into the most terrible time of the year."

They also credited "an international collective of AI specialists at @thegardening.club" for bringing McDonald's' first fully-AI commercial "to life."

Although the YouTube link for the commercial currently also comes back as unavailable, the commercial sparked such a strong reaction that there have been enough reposts to ensure it lives on.

Backlash against McDonald's AI ad

The very basic idea behind the ad could be cute: Christmas going wrong, again and again. But there's no question that it reeked of AI. Scenes that would have required special effects (either practical or digital) looked too cartoonish. People interacted in ways that felt unnatural. There was an overall lack of humanity to it; it just noticeably felt "off."

The backlash came in strong not long after the commercial dropped.

"Wow this looks like f***ing sh*t," wrote @USA_Polling, racking up nearly 55,000 likes.

"AI bros are some of the most unserious people on the planet," responded @Saberspark.

"Companies are racing to see who can piss off the most amount of people with the lowest amount of effort," quipped @Framesofnick.

"The visuals are pointless, because it’s just random nonsense like most AI videos. There’s no weight to anything, despite the focus being human “failures.” They’re not shot well, and moreso not “real,” so it leaves no impact. It’s hard to recall a more soulless and ingenuine piece of work than this," wrote @ArtofSpongebob.

AI fanatics praise McDonald's

Tech bros who obsess over AI continue to praise every little thing generated by it. Just because they lack the ability or interest in differentiating between human-created work and AI slop, they assume everyone else needs to feel the same way. And they were big mad about the backlash against McDonald's.

"People just wanna get upset over everything. You can tell it’s AI, but it also still made me laugh and I enjoyed it. This is the future boys and girls, embrace it or get left behind," wrote @Scott_Herman.

Meanwhile, @ThisisTraxx posited, "This ad probably would’ve costed them $1-2M+. They probably spent including minimal labor. $20k. I say it’s a win. Because good can come from it and bad. And we all know, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Great job."

But at the end of the day, does the discourse even matter? Quite a few people pointed out that McDonald's can probably do whatever they want because it's not going to effect their bottom line.

And then there's this:

Happy holidays!

UPDATE: December 17, 2025: A previous edition of this story mentions MAMA's association with the commercial. The company resigned from the job, and as such, credits have been amended, and the director's credit was removed per a press release.

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here.