McDonald’s Releases AI Christmas Ad That Viewers Say Looks Even Worse Than Coca-Cola’s
McDonald’s Netherlands has released a new Christmas commercial, and it is getting attention for one reason: the whole thing was made using AI.
The company moved away from the usual warm holiday look and instead created a noisy, chaotic video that focuses on the stressful side of December. The ad calls the season “The Most Terrible Time of the Year,” and the idea behind the project was shared through reports on McDonald’s Netherlands and its creative partners.
To make the commercial, McDonald’s worked with the agency TBWA\NEBOKO and production company Sweetshop, which has a team that experiments with AI tools. The final style was shaped with help from the directing duo known as MAMA.
Their goal was to push the visuals into more exaggerated and humorous territory, showing a holiday season filled with pressure and fast-moving problems.
McDonald's has unveiled its own AI-generated Christmas ad that somehow looks even worse than Coca-Cola's.
— 80 LEVEL (@80Level) December 8, 2025
Terrible AI visuals? Check. Horrible messaging? Check. A like-to-dislike ratio that says it all? Oh, you better believe that's a check:https://t.co/XQHnVLoG5T pic.twitter.com/Vestu3uNJS
But the use of AI has created a mixed reaction online. Some people were curious about the experiment, while many others criticized the look of the commercial or the choice to use AI at all.
One person wrote, “The difference in how the Japanese branch and American branch advertise is so jarring. Japanese McDonalds constantly collabs with popular internet artists… even when they did an AI ad.” Another viewer said, “I think this is bad for all the reasons that they didn’t want it to be bad.”
Others joked about how quickly the ad may have been made, posting, “Did they literally just splice together 6 second generations lol?” Another comment read, “Wow, will definitely NOT be going to McDonald’s this Christmas.”
Some reactions were even harsher. One user said, “They saw what their millennial writers came up with, scrapped it and said ‘that s**** sucks we need AI.’” Another wrote, “Visual slop to go along with the edible slop. Quite fitting actually.” Someone else noted the speed of AI updates, saying, “The thing is that new models are coming out so quickly that a project that isn’t completed very quickly feels outdated when it is finished.”
The commercial has clearly started a bigger conversation about how AI fits into advertising. Some viewers see it as a fun experiment. Others think it shows the downsides of relying too much on automated tools.
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