Meta.
Meta’s ‘The future is for everyone’ campaign aims to create optimism around the opportunity AI can bring into the future, but industry experts say the big tech company fails to address the concerns about the future of technology.
The campaign uses a range of visuals of everyday humans, a male voiceover and features David Bowie's 'Five Years' as the soundtrack.
MC&V co-founder Vinne Schifferstein Vidal said Meta is selling an emotional relationship with the future rather than a particular product.
“Meta is trying to move the AI conversation away from fear and towards optimism, while positioning itself as the company that will make the benefits of AI broadly accessible,” Schifferstein Vidal told AdNews.
“The public debate around AI is shaped by concerns about jobs, misinformation, copyright, data and the concentration of power.
“Rather than engaging with those issues directly, Meta reframes the debate as a choice between pessimism and progress.
“The fact that technology can be available to everyone does not automatically mean its value, power or economic benefits will be shared by everyone.
“Meta can credibly claim enormous reach. What it has yet to prove is that reach and democratisation are the same thing.”
Schifferstein Vidal said the visuals focus on human connection, creativity and possibility, while the technology itself, its commercial implications and its potential disruption are pushed almost entirely out of frame.
“AI becomes an invisible enabling layer beneath everyday life, which makes the future feel reassuring but also avoids the harder realities of who controls the technology, who benefits from it and who may be displaced by it," she said.
“The choice of David Bowie’s Five Years introduces an interesting contradiction, because the song’s original premise is apocalyptic. That tension adds depth to a film that might otherwise feel overly polished and uncomplicated.
“The narration becomes less convincing when it suggests that people warning about the risks of AI simply lack optimism.
"Many of those concerns are practical and legitimate, including questions about jobs, copyright, data, misinformation and who ultimately benefits. Believing in AI’s potential does not mean ignoring those issues.”
Meta's 'The future is for everyone' comes only weeks after Anthropic released 'There's hope in the hard questions,' aiming to address the concerns surrounding AI usage in day-to-day life.
Mel Hay, account director at The Digital Picnic, said the campaign reflects a broader pattern in how big tech is managing its AI narrative
“Anthropic went minimalist and cautious, positioning Claude as a deep thinking partner, then leaned into safety and privacy jabs at OpenAI's expense. OpenAI countered with cinematic, human moments ads," said Hay.
“Microsoft is quietly playing the productivity card through Copilot rather than emotion. Meta's answer is nostalgia and nostalgia alone, betting on nearly twenty years of "goodwill" rather than a single new capability. But is it really goodwill, or goodwill hunting?"
BCM creative strategy lead Sam Boyd said the campaign is an attempt at humanising Meta after a recent spate of non-human-promoting efforts.
“This would have been a hard brief for anyone to do well. It probably comes off the back of Meta letting go of 10% of its people globally to invest in AI capex," said Boyd.
“Or off the back of automatically opting all of the people on their platforms into Muse Image, where anyone can tag a handle and generate images from that person's likeness with no consent and no notification, which, after intense backlash, they had to roll back.
“This feels like a COVID-esque, out-of-touch manifesto brand film that tries to unite us and say we're all in it together.
“It fails on two basic counts. They failed to read their audience. Or perhaps their audience wasn't people, but a particular set of people at the top of their company?”
SOLVD creative director Dan Stephens said that the ad is a trust-rehab exercise dressed up as an optimism manifesto, swapping the usual tech-talk for a nostalgic "we bet on people" sentiment as AI anxiety builds.
“Credit where credit's due though. The arrangement of music, narration and imagery does genuine emotional work, and the defiant "call us whatever the hell you want" gives it personality,” said Stephens.
“Odd choice of soundtrack though. Five Years is Bowie's countdown to human extinction, not exactly the vibe Meta's going for.
“The narration is reassuring and rebellious in parts, but the message lands flat on accountability, especially from a company facing real pressure over how it's actually governing AI. It's persuasive craft, not persuasive substance.”
Independent Adrian Elton Creative said the whole ad falls flat and reads as deeply disingenuous given how hard it’s increasingly become to buy into the glib aspirationality they're trying to sell us.
"As Meta shores up its incorporation of AI into its ever expanding product suite, which now includes physical products like the Meta RayBan Smart sunnies, this ad tries to put a warm fuzzy 'Hello Kitty' hat on the gun-metal robot that is staring back at us with its menacingly glowing red diode eyes," Elton said.
"It’s almost like their bet on people, is more aptly, a bet on people looking past the still smouldering car crash of Cambridge Analytica and every other Meta breach of trust and data ever since."
Common Ventures creative and co-founder, Jane Burhop, said that Meta desperately wants to be today’s version of Apple’s ‘1984‘, trying its hardest to position the brand as the anti-hero democratising AI for human connection.
“Yet every creative decision clashes with this at every turn, a tinny, generated-sounding voiceover actively fights against the nostalgic yawn-worthy montage and whacking Zuckerberg’s profile picture in there is a nice narcissistic cherry on the top, ripping the viewer out of the halcyon imagery and reminding them exactly who thinks they’re pulling the strings," said Burhop.
"This spot exposes a glaring blind spot in big tech's perspective, they claim to understand the data points and behaviours of a ‘user’ but they are miles away from understanding the inner person and their motivations.
“Masking AI anxieties with forced optimism doesn't make Meta look visionary, it just further highlights their questionable corporate values and shows a company in deep denial about the human consequences of its own platforms.”
Q Agency co-founder and head of creative, Michael Noone, said that everything Meta is saying about AI is being said by an advertising company.
“Meta wields extraordinary power and makes all of its money off advertising revenue,” said Noone.
“A company whose entire income depends on how much of your life you spend inside its products is telling you that the most persuasive technology anyone has ever built is going to bring you closer to people.
“Every product decision they've made for twenty years has been optimised for time on platform.
“Pointing AI at your wellbeing instead of your attention would mean acting directly against themselves.
“So are they really dreamers? Or are they dreaming up new ways to ravage your time and your attention? The future is for everyone. Especially everyone with a media budget.
“The next election outcome, brought to you by Meta, powered by AI, powered by advertising dollars, paid for by you. Twice. Once with your money, the second time with your attention.”
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