Last Sunday, as I headed out on the L train into Manhattan with my final destination Roosevelt Island for a tennis clinic. I noticed that our hyper-connected screen culture has officially annexed the subway commute with video screens replacing the printed banners above the sliding doors. Do we really need to be bombarded by more digital noise? Will the next iteration of advertising morph into a dystopian Minority Report nightmare, where curated algorithms follow us through public transit? I could almost see Tom Cruise dodging customized holographic billboards as I stared at the transit screen blasting an ad for an AI tool called Genspark.

If you aren’t familiar with this company. It is a Palo Alto-based AI company building agents for global knowledge workers. OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, and many other tech giants all formed strategic partnerships with Genspark since its launch.

As I watched the loop of four distinct commercials from Genspark.ai, I couldn’t help but think: Is this really it? Some marketing team genuinely approved this, thinking it would miraculously drive annual subscriptions? "Could this particular instance serve as a representative example of the level of quality that artificial intelligence is capable of?

The big, bold tagline bragged about creating a “pitch deck in minutes.” Groundbreaking, truly. It was just a basic pie chart slapped next to a few words. I can make that exact same slide in minutes, but please, consumers, gasp in awe at the geometric shapes. Hold on to your designer briefs, though, because the next ad promised a bar chart with a headline and body copy. Oh my god, a bar chart in seconds! Take my money, Genspark. To make matters worse, you can't even test the product—the landing page aggressively funnels you straight into paid memberships.

Reddit users’s take confirmed my suspicions. "Unlimited, my ass. Genspark is a total scam for annual subscribers," read the top pinned comment. A quick search for the word "scam" yielded 16 hits on a single thread. Sure, call it selection bias, or just call it facts: Genspark.ai flops. Look, I’m not here to just blindly hate on new technology, but we have to call a spade a spade. If AI wants to take over our commutes, it needs to do a hell of a lot better than a glorified Microsoft Excel graphic.

Created by https://x.com/xdanielart, a Graphic designer focused on 3D and web/addons/game programing.