Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

Overall sentiment toward “AI” branding

• Many commenters say “AI” in marketing has shifted from meaningless buzzword to active negative signal.
• It now connotes sloppiness, low effort, enshittification, and “cheap and quick at the cost of quality.”
• People want to hear what a feature does, not what technology powers it; “AI” is seen as an internal implementation detail.

User experience: chatbots, agents, and forced integrations

• Strong hostility toward AI customer-service bots and phone trees: they’re perceived as dehumanizing, unhelpful, and a way to avoid giving real support.
• Multiple anecdotes of being trapped by bots that can’t solve non‑standard issues and make escalation difficult.
• Widespread frustration with AI buttons and overlays being forced into OSes, IDEs, phones, TVs, office suites, and e‑commerce flows, often replacing simpler deterministic features that used to work.
• Good ML/AI that quietly improves recommendations, photos, or washing-machine cycles is tolerated or appreciated; “visible AI” usually marks a UX regression.

AI branding as investor signaling

• Many argue “AI” on the box is aimed at VCs, boards, and public markets, not end‑users.
• It’s compared to past waves: “web‑everything,” “blockchain,” and “the algorithm” hype.
• One product team reports backlash when a feature was called “AI,” which disappeared after renaming it to “Advanced Search” without changing functionality.

Jobs, ethics, environment, and trust

• “AI” branding is widely associated with job loss, union‑busting, and “we fired staff for profits.”
• Artists’ and creators’ concerns (plagiarism, uncompensated training data) and environmental worries (energy, water, data centers, local pollution) strengthen negative feelings.
• Some see AI corporations and supporting governments as symbols of capital steamrolling communities and regulation.

Disagreement and nuance

• Several note that many people happily use AI tools when they choose to (coding assistants, homework help, translation, search/learning aids) but resent being forced to interact with AI in products.
• Others dispute claims that “everyone” uses ChatGPT; cited survey data in the thread suggests adoption is growing but still not universal or daily for most adults.
• Some technologists argue AI is genuinely useful as a research/learning tool and for code generation, but agree that most “AI‑powered” consumer features are rushed, poorly scoped, or misapplied.