Toys ‘R’ Us AI-generated ad torn apart by critics
The AI-generated ad whipped up backlash from viewers who described it as a “weird dream” and “baffling.”
Toys “R” Us has seen a wave of backlash after releasing its latest advertisement, fully created using OpenAI’s generative video artificial intelligence tool Sora.

The ad depicts the American toy retailer’s founder Charles Lazarus as a child and his vision to create the Toys “R” Us store and its mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. The ad was created by the firm’s in-house studio and creative agency Native Foreign.

In a statement accompanying the ad, the toy retailer touted its AI-generated film as “leaping ahead of the curve” as the first major ad created purely by OpenAI’s text-to-video tool.

“Charles Lazarus was a visionary ahead of his time and we wanted to honor his legacy with a spot using the most cutting-edge technology available,” Toys “R” Us chief marketing officer Kim Miller Olko said in a statement.