I Tried to Recreate Google’s Ad with My Kid’s Stuffed Animal, and It Didn’t Go as Planned

When your child starts to favor a particular stuffed animal, the common advice is to snag a backup in case it goes missing. I’ve heard this suggestion countless times, but I never got around to picking up a second plush deer after my son declared “Buddy” his favorite. Apparently, the parents in Google’s latest ad for Gemini missed that memo too.

The ad tells a relatable tale of two parents who realize their child’s beloved stuffed lamb, Mr. Fuzzy, was left behind on a plane. They turn to Gemini to find a replacement, but the new toy is on backorder. To keep their child entertained, they use Gemini to create images and videos of Mr. Fuzzy on a globe-trotting adventure—posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, dodging bulls in Pamplona, and even sending a message to “Emma” about his return in five to eight business days. It’s cute, or a bit odd, depending on your perspective. But can Gemini actually pull this off? Let’s find out.

I uploaded three pictures of Buddy, our real-life Mr. Fuzzy, from different angles and used the same prompt from the ad: “find this stuffed animal to buy ASAP.” It returned a few potential matches. However, when I expanded its response, I found an extensive 1,800-word analysis detailing its thought process as it debated whether Buddy was a dog, a bunny, or something else entirely. It was wild, featuring phrases like “I am considering the puppy hypothesis” and “I’m now back in the rabbit hole!” Ultimately, Gemini suggested that the toy might be from Target and likely discontinued, recommending I check eBay.

To be fair, Buddy is a bit of a mystery. His features are generic cute woodland creature, the care tag is long gone, and we’re not even sure who gifted him to us. However, we do know he’s made by Mary Meyer, as indicated by the tag on his rear. He seems to belong to the “Putty” collection, which Gemini explored a few times, and is probably a fawn that was discontinued around 2021. I reached this conclusion after about 20 minutes of Googling, with no help from AI. A reverse image search confidently labeled him as a puppy.

Gemini performed better on the second part of the task, but it wasn’t as straightforward as the ad suggests. I started with a different photo of Buddy—one where he’s in my son’s arms on a plane—and prompted, “make a photo of the deer on his next flight.” The result was decent, though his lower half was obscured in the original image, making the feet look a bit off. Close enough, though.

The ad doesn’t reveal the full prompt for the next two images, so I went with: “Now make a photo of the same deer in front of the Grand Canyon.” It delivered just that—complete with airplane seatbelt and headphones. I got more specific with my next prompt, adding a camera in his hands, and received a more convincing image.

I can see how Gemini misinterpreted my prompt when I asked for a photo of the same deer “at a family reunion.” I didn’t specify which family reunion, so it ended up at the Johnson family gathering—full of humans. I can only assume Gemini took my last name as a cue because it wasn’t in my prompt. When I asked for a new family reunion scene featuring his family, it just swapped the people for stuffed deer, complete with little placards saying “deer reunion.” I was taken aback.

For the final part of the ad, the couple uses Gemini to create adorable videos of Mr. Fuzzy engaging in various adventures: snowboarding, white-water rafting, skydiving, and finally appearing in a spacesuit on the moon, addressing “Emma” directly. The commercial zips through these clips quickly, which feels a bit misleading since Gemini takes a couple of minutes to generate a video. Even with my Gemini Pro account, I’m limited to three generated videos per day, meaning it would take several days to get all those clips just right.

Gemini wouldn’t create a video based on any image of my child holding the stuffed deer, likely due to safeguards against generating deepfakes of kids. I started with the only photo I had of Buddy alone: hanging upside down after a wash. The first clip it generated showed Buddy in space, upside down, before transforming into a right-side-up astronaut and delivering the dialogue I requested.

A second prompt with a clear photo of Buddy upright seemed to mix elements from the previous video with the new one, so I started a fresh chat to see if I could get it to work from scratch. Honestly? It nailed it, aside from the antlers that Gemini kept sneaking in. However, this clip raised a nagging question: should you do any of this when your child loses a cherished toy?

I gave Buddy the same dialogue as in the commercial, using my son’s name instead of Emma. Hearing that AI-generated voice say my child’s name sent alarm bells ringing. An AI version of Buddy in front of the Eiffel Tower? A bit odd, but cute. AI Buddy addressing my son directly? Absolutely not.

The dilemma of how much to shield your kids from the truth is a constant struggle for parents. Do you swap in an identical stuffed animal from the closet when the original goes missing and pretend it’s the same? Do you tell them the truth and use it as a lesson about loss? Or do you just buy yourself some time and enlist AI to help create a believable story? I wouldn’t judge any parent for choosing any of these options. Personally, I draw the line at an AI character speaking directly to my child. I never showed him these AI-generated versions of Buddy, and I plan to keep it that way.

But back to the simpler question: can Gemini actually do everything it claims in the ad? More or less. However, achieving those results requires a lot of careful prompting and re-prompting. It’s telling that throughout most of the ad, the full prompts generating the results on screen are not shown. A lot also hinges on your source material. Gemini wouldn’t produce any video based on an image of my child holding Buddy—rightly so! This means that if you don’t have the right kind of photo, generating believable videos of Mr. Sniffles or any other toy will be quite challenging.

Like many other elder millennials, I often think about Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson famously refused to commercialize his characters, wanting to keep them alive in our imaginations rather than on screens. He believed that giving Hobbes a voice would alter the relationship between the reader and the character, and I agree. The bond between a child and a stuffed animal is real and somewhat magical; whoever Buddy is in my child’s imagination, I don’t want AI to overwrite that.

The harsh reality is that there’s a time limit on that relationship. When I became a parent, I wasn’t prepared for how my toddler snuggling his stuffed deer would touch my heart. It’s pure and sweet, yet it also brings a tinge of sadness, knowing that the days of seeking comfort from a toy like Buddy are numbered. He will eventually outgrow it, and I’m not ready for that reality. Perhaps in trying to spare our kids some heartache over their lost companions, we’re also trying to delay our own.