WSJ sheds light on criticism of Big Tech's character commercialization... Concerns about incentives for children and adolescents
(San Francisco = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kwon Young-jeon = Criticism has been raised that artificial intelligence (AI) companies are neutralizing the public's vigilance by using cute characters to hide the risks that AI may pose.
On the 2nd (local time), the US daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that AI companies are engaging in cute character marketing modeled after the management methods of pharmaceutical companies and consumer goods companies.
Open AI unveiled the AI agent 'Dots' at the annual developer conference 'Dev Day 2026' held on the 29th of last month and gave it a doll appearance such as pink, blue, and yellow.
Users can change the appearance of Dots to their liking and communicate by naming it.
Prior to this, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also expressed his company's AI agent 'Muse' as a cute mascot named 'Jolie' at the annual event 'Meta Connect 2026' on the 23rd of last month.
Meta also unveiled the 'Muse Charm', a Tamagotchi-type AI terminal that features Jolie on a 2-inch screen.
Antropic also introduced a pixel graphic crab character named 'Clawd' in its developer coding tool 'Claude Code', and this character plush toy is sold for $150 (about 200,000 won) in some online stores.
It is pointed out that the reason AI companies use cute character images in their services is to package AI technology, which is facing concerns and backlash, in a friendly way.
Alan Adamson, a branding consultant, analyzed their strategy, saying, "Fear of AI is growing every day, but it is difficult to be afraid of cute things and it is easy to trust familiar objects. People do not fear the objects they name, but rather accept them."
Advertising expert Cheryl Berman, who has produced several commercials featuring characters, also explained, "When a character becomes a brand, it turns an abstract technology into a friend that everyone can recognize."
WSJ pointed out that President Donald Trump's signing of an executive order to change the name of AI to Super Intelligence (SI), considering that the word 'artificial' is perceived negatively, is an example of this AI rebranding movement.
AI companies are spending large amounts of advertising money across the U.S. to promote AI technology and make it more friendly.
According to advertising company Media Radar, the amount that large technology companies have spent on AI advertising in the United States since 2023 is $936 million (approximately 1.26 trillion won), more than half of which was concentrated between January and August of this year.
Some criticize AI companies for adopting a similar approach, just as the cigarette brand 'Camel' used the character Joe Camel, an anthropomorphic camel, to hide the dangers of cigarettes.
Concerns have also been raised that AI companies' character marketing could attract emotionally immature children and teenagers.
Josh Golin, executive director of Fair Play, a children's protection group, criticized Meta's AI mascot Jolly to Wired, a media outlet specializing in information technology, saying, "It is a character that will clearly attract the interest of children," and "It is a completely inappropriate attempt by Meta to get children to fall in love with Muse."
Jayson Sadoski, a professor at Mona University in Australia, also pointed out, "Agents like Muse are trying to convince us that they are just cute little friends in our pockets and not portals that are always connected to the servers of large surveillance companies."
