ai fails

I think it’s safe to assume that these failures wouldn’t have happened if ai had not been used?

it's funny 'cos it's true ...

 Well, true-ish.

big brother* is watching ... or, why I don't do facebook

I needed to know how to repair something in my van. A google search took me to a video on facebook. As the video ended, up popped a message telling me that a friend of mine - 160 miles away - was at a night club. Not a secret. But still ...

*I mean the one from George Orwell's book '1984', not the TV show.

one for the x files?

So I'm watching a TV programme about canals [on a TV with an outside aerial]. The boat is going over a massive aqueduct in Wales, but I missed its name. 

So I opened google on my PC and typed in "aqueduct … " but before I could add 'Wales' the auto-prompt thingy puts in 'Wales'. 

I have searched for aqueducts around the UK a number of times ... but why did google know I was looking for that country? 

Spooky.

*Younger readers might need to look up "the X Files TV series" 😏

Note the date of this cartoon

 

wasted search ad money

The search was for a very specific type of  motorhome; the "Transit Duetto Autosleeper". In the result, the first two ads are for campervans - which are different to motorhomes - and none are for 'Transit', 'Duetto' or 'Autosleeper'.

So the search was refined, adding the make of the motorhome. "Ford Transit Duetto Autosleeper" produced the following  return ...

Yep, Ford have paid for an ad to be presented if any searcher used the words "Ford" and "Transit" - the ad being for a brand new Ford Transit van. Not a motorhome. And not one that was last produced in 2010 ie used not new.

Ho hum.

any colour so long as it isn't black*

I wanted some information on the wiring of my van, and so entered a relevant search into Google ... and got this ai-generated response.  Note the 'typically'. I know what vehicle wiring colours are typically, but my enquiry was for specific information. Ho hum.

* For younger readers: when Ford introduced its original Model T car, it was only available in black [it made production cheaper].

ad spend well spent?

 I have no idea what this is. The ad data suggests I'm not the only one 😏

a reminder

In the world of ai, the word ‘agents’ is a replacement for the word ‘bots’*.  And ‘bots’ is short for 'robots'. 

So when you read the word ‘agents’, think: robots.

*Kudos to the marketer who thought of the rebrand.

instructions included

Soooooo, I was reading a social media article on a subject that interested me ... but the writing seemed a little clunky therefore it was no surprise when at the end of the article I read  the following:

"Since you didn’t include specific instructions with this text I have gone ahead and rewritten it into a punchy scannable format based on our previous tasks. Would you like me to generate some alternative headlines for this story or perhaps condense it down even further?"

The lesson gained from this is that if you're going to use ai software to write your articles, you should really edit them before publishing them.

a perfect review request

It's also very classy ... which reflects the experience you get at the actual place.

a little local difficulty

So I was looking for something to do in Scarborough [Yorkshire, England], and this is what Google advised. The first four were fine ... the other 'local activities' weren't even on the same continent. Ho hum.

artificial stupidity?

 

would you want your ad here?

After analysing 6 million social media posts related to the [World Cup] tournament's group stage, FIFA's Social Media Protection Service reported 89,000 abusive social media posts with over 10% involving racial abuse.*

If you had paid for ads on social media pages related to football - your ad could have appeared alongside any of these 89,000 abusive posts. 

*Source: widely reported in all media, from original post in Instagram by Gianni Infantino [@gianni_infantino] June 2026.

B2B ... what, all of it?

"Your newest competitors aren’t other brands said the article's title". Its promo went on to say that; [the author] "... reframes modern B2B competition by detailing how AI answers intercept buyers long before they ever visit your website."

Well, it worked with me - so I followed the link to the article - which still presented itself as being about B2B. 

Except that it wasn't: it was about marketing software to businesses. 

Now ... the advice in the article might have been very good for SaaS companies. 

But for pretty much every other B2B market, the advice was nonsense. 

The top 10 websites receiving traffic from social media in June 2026

Source: Similarweb, X, July 21, 2026 @Similarweb. 

https://www.similarweb.com/corp/reports/

ai might make a job easier … but does it make the results better?

 Just asking.

how do you discover new products?

I'm not sure what 'how do you discover new products?' means ... so I'm not sure the respondents did either [eg does it mean a completely new product you've never heard of, or a product that is new from a different supplier that you already know?]

Either way, the results are interesting in that the top two are non-digital - and good old search engines [you know, those things that ai has killed off] is the third option. 

sorry i got the email you sent to someone else

I received this email on my email address - obviously it was for someone else with the same name. The footer on the email read:

"This message and any attached files are intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) to whom it is addressed, and may contain information that is potentially personal and/or confidential and/or protected by applicable copyright law. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please be advised that you have received it in error and are hereby notified that any dissemination, duplication, publication to third parties or other use, in whole or in part, of its content is expressly prohibited. You must immediately notify the sender of this fact, returning the message and deleting it from the respective system.

This communication is for use by the intended recipient and contains information that may be privileged, confidential or copyrighted under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby formally notified that any use, copying or distribution of this e-mail, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this e-mail from your system."

Note the last sentence - this is what I received when I replied [informing the sender of the error]

"Address not found

Your message wasn't delivered to resultados@xxxxxx.pt because the address couldn't be found or is unable to receive email."

Obviously written by the legal department, I find the whole thing offensive because it is instructing - and threatening - me over a mistake they have made. No 'please' or 'apologies for the inconvenience'. I'm not even sure the legal threats are valid. After all, they delivered the information to me. It is their fault - can they legally prevent me from using any information found in it. 

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

when the music is not your choice

I rarely use Spotify and so only use the free version - and I accept the ads that come with it. But the other day I had my Marvin Gaye playlist on ... and on came a track I didn't recognise as being on the playlist. Mr Gaye, definitely, but not from my playlist. A little investigation revealed that Spotify had decided to add this track to my playlist as a recommendation. Why? Am I supposed to buy it? Am I supposed to be grateful for being told about a track that I had - presumably - rejected for my Marvin Gaye list. All it did was annoy me and lower my opinion of the music service - and so reduce any chance there might have been of me opting for the paid version.

ad spend, well spent?

Three issues with this ad;

#1 Note that this suggests that any advice will be based on human experience, and yet #2 warns us that ai can make mistakes. And finally, #3 ... over a million impressions. Wowcher!

ad spend well spent?

Oh yes, I must rent one of these tomorrow. Or next time I'm in Yorkshire.

I've been asking similar for a couple of years ...

 ... so I wish I'd written this - 5 questions to ask AI vendors before you buy anything. It is very good. I seriously doubt that any business that has bought-into ai asked these questions.

my ebay 'homepage'

OK, so it does say 'discover new sellers ...' but it also says '... that you will love'. Well, why would I love these when I have never, ever, bought anything like these products before. Indeed, one is for women's clothes.

Three issues to raise:

#1 It's  doing nothing for my user experience, 

#2 It's doing nothing for those folk who are paying for these ads to appear in front of me, and

#3 I've bought hundreds of products from ebay since 2003 - surely they could use that buying history to deliver ads for products I might have at least some interested in?

ad spend well spent?

Nearly all of the 'ad spend well spent?' examples on this blog come from X - so what do you think of X's ad for it's own ads?

really?

 This meant to be an advantage. It isn't.

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. no

Only West Ham fans would buy a West Ham shirt - why advertise it to anyone else? Particularly someone who's X profile tells the software which football team he supports [and it's not West Ham]. Ho hum.

how much?

No, seriously ... how much is this product?

permission to steal?

Apparently, this is the default setting on Instagram. Bad enough if it's your personal account. But what if it's your business account where your content is being made available for competitors to use?😏

mind the gaps

 It's a little thing, but it bugs me because it makes things messy, but ...

If you leave gaps in your URLs like this:

https://www.salsify.com/hubfs/2026/Salsify 2026 Consumer Research Executive Summary.pdf

when you copy it and paste it into another format that doesn't like spaces [eg word or gmail], it comes out like this ...   

https://www.salsify.com/hubfs/2026/Salsify%202026%20Consumer%20Research%20Executive%20Summary.pdf

nothing's new?

I have no problem with the advice offered in Avoid all-caps headlines - mainly because folk like me were saying pretty much the same over 20 years ago.

And that's why I have included it here ... to emphasise that spending an hour or so going through the older entries on this blog will be worth your while because a lot of the stuff is still relevant today.

The article also talks about seeking new markets and customers as if that’s a revolutionary digital concept - and not part of Marketing Strategy 101.

a bit late

I got this email from my broadband provider. Helpful, you might think - except that I have already activated the protection offered. Surely BT's various software talks to each other?

yes, it shows ...

 

be honest ...

If you was a business owner ... would you like your ads to appear on a platform that boasts that it lets users make AI images from public Instagram profile pics? Read the story on the BBC.

 

Postscript:

Shortly after this story broke came the news from the BBC …

"Meta has abruptly taken down a new feature that allowed people to use its artificial intelligence (AI) tool to make fake images from user content on Instagram."

To me, this says Meta spent an awful lot of money on a product they thought was OK without doing any consumer research. Good business practice?

ad spend well spent? [on a dubious product]

This one goes beyond the question of me being served and ad [on twitter/x] for a product I've no interest in - it seems to me that the product is a bit iffy. OK, so it is available on Amazon as some kind of health product - but numerous reliable sources say [something like] 

A doctor explains that using peptides without medical supervision is unsafe and discusses the associated risks. He outlines specific questions to ask a specialty provider who is offering peptides to reduce your risk of side effects or poor outcomes.

But let's get back to the advertising issue. On the ad it says in very small print 'for laboratory use only'. So, if it is really* for laboratory use only then the ad is targeted at folk who are using this stuff for laboratory research, wouldn't it be easy to get a list of those labs - there can't be that many - and contact them directly? 

Having said that, if the sellers are trying to find individuals who are willing to jeopardise their health by listening to influencers and take this stuff ... well maybe scattergun advertising makes sense?

* Or are those 4 words a legal get-out clause? Would labs really be interested in a retail price with discount for using crypto?

a few years overdue?

In days gone by I did many website 'audits' ... this is the sort of thing I would find.

excellent, well done

Bought some shoes. Didn't fit. Completed online form. No quibble. Produced label for return postage [which I had to print, the only negative]. No charge for return shipping. Email confirming receipt. Then this email. 

👏👏👏

why? you're wasting your ad money

I wanted some laces for my Adidas Samba Supers. I've worn these for around 45 years so I knew exactly what I wanted. I put into eBay search my specific requirements: "Black Laces Waxed - Round,140cm 2mm".

And this was the first sponsored [advert] return.

My guess is that the seller bid on [ie 'bought'] the key words "laces" and "round". True, I wanted round laces, but I wanted black, not brown; 2mm, not 2.5; 140cm not 75.

Furthermore, the next three sponsored listings were similar in their generic listings for laces. 

Ho hum.   

excellent email list cleansing practice

 

remember this?

It was reported that Meta spent over $70B on this total  failure. Maybe if they had asked some normal human beings if they thought it was a good idea and whether they would be happy to use it [no and no].

nice touch

I do like it when websites ask for your email address and then present an 'email friendly' keyboard 👏

Just an example of some useless data …

Yes, this is just some personal information from my iPad - which I ignored - but just consider how much data storage is used up with similarly useless stats about all aspects of business and marketing 🤔

Ad spend well spent?

Rather than show an ad that is irrelevant to the vast majority of folk who might see it, I would have thought the advertiser [I've included its description below the ad] could have contacted directly those organisations that might be interested in their offering 🤔 

I can write my own words, sentences and paragraphs thank you.

 

Nothing. Ever. 

And this is why ...

Who has ever used 'clothe' as a singular noun for clothes?

And there is no way that putting a comma after 'morning' makes any sense whatsoever. I despair. 

Back to basics?

As with the early Internet, it looks as though pornography is to be the primary source of income for the ai companies? 🤔

This makes sense to me

I would like a definition of 'discovering a new product' eg does it mean a product that I've never heard of before, or a new version or brand of something I was previously aware of, but nevertheless this data seems sensible. 

Ad spend well spent?

 I've include this not so much for the fact that it is of no interest to me - but take a look at the impressions ...

Remember when this was the next ‘big thing’?

 

buying justice?

Meta and google may have been found liable in Los Angeles and New Mexico for causing harm and failing to protect young people [subject to appeal, of course], but social media platforms seem to have found a way to ensure this doesn't happen elsewhere in the US: vast amounts of cash!

meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube settled a suit brought by the Kentucky schools district over social media addiction for a total of $27m - eight percent more than the school district's total annual budget. Even if such payments were extrapolated across all 1,300 districts bringing suits against big tech, this would amount to $35 billion. If Meta were liable for a third of that sum [as it was in the Kentucky case, this would equate to roughly one month of the company's operating income. It's easy to buy immunity with infinitely deep pockets.

Private Eye No.1677, June 2026.

influence?

I just watched a video on YouTube in which a bloke went around a number of campervans, giving a short review of each eg price, size, how many berths, shower etc. He offered no opinion other than comments such as 'the kitchen area is rather small' that is; statements of facts. 

In my eyes he was presenting the video ... but he was billed as an influencer.

He didn't influence me ... the facts did. 

Ho hum.

With whom do you agree ?

 

Apple no-entry

When Apple don't want to let you use your [Apple] iPhone to log in to your Apple account. My phone tells me it is running IoS 26.5.

Marketing is more than advertising

I could not access the actual report, so do not know the methodology, but these priorities all seem to focus on advertising - not marketing🤔

just a little accounts question ...

Which one of these do you think would be the best investment for your money?

it's not a bank account

OK, I get security, and I can live with having to access a code on my phone to get into a site, but they're usually four or five digits, not this ...

i agree

'Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ... exempted online media from responsibilities that every other medium is subject to. In essence it told platforms they could publish virtually anything they wanted without liability. It was unprecedented in the history of the nation.

The fiction that 230 created was that online platforms were not publishers (in fact, they are the largest publishers in the world.) But the fiction has allowed them to accumulate trillions of dollars by publishing lies, porn, deep fakes, hate material, violent material, libels, and mountains of despicable trash without any responsibility or liability.

The judge in Germany ruled that by using their AI systems to produce new content, Google was no longer protected by 230 and were clearly publishers. The court said that displaying third-party links is "search," but having  AI systems create and rewrite information creates new content, and that makes Google legally a publisher.'

Bob Hoffman in his Ad Contrarian Newsletter June 21, 2026.

I've been - happily - with Gmail from the very beginning [when it was Google mail], but getting these ads over my inbox every time I open it up is turning me against it.

 

according to ai ... it's shorter coming back

The result of two searches on Google, both asking how far it is from one place to another but each search being in a different direction.

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

Know your subject

 I find this frustrating. The folk writing this stuff should know that ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’ are NOT the same thing.