Former Google executive Marissa Mayer has faced a wave of online criticism after revealing that she turned to an AI assistant to come up with three qualities describing her daughter.
The 51-year-old discussed the moment during an interview with The New York Times , where she was promoting Dazzle, her new technology start-up focused on developing AI personal assistants.
Mayer explained that toward the end of last year, she found herself unable to write three bullet points for her nine-year-old daughter’s teacher outlining what made the child stand out.
Faced with what she described as too many possible answers, Mayer asked Dazzle to help. The app produced a response within seconds.
Its description identified her daughter as “empathetic, creative and an animal lover.”
The revelation quickly drew backlash online. Mayer, whose fortune is estimated at $1.4 billion, was accused by some social media users of failing to know her own child well enough, with several even calling her a bad mother.
“The best case scenario is that this is a lie made up for the article,” one person wrote on X.
Another commenter posted: “This woman has spent next to no time with her kid. My god.”
A third user questioned whether the account had been exaggerated to generate attention, writing: “I hope this is an exaggeration to make for an interesting click-baity article.”
Mayer discussed her use of Dazzle during a New York Times interview about the technology start-up and its focus on AI-powered personal assistants
According to Mayer, Dazzle is being developed with busy women especially in mind, as the company seeks to make AI assistants part of their daily routines
Someone else was even more direct, commenting: “If you can’t think of three good things about your kid, you shouldn’t be a parent.”
Dazzle represents Mayer’s first major move into the AI personal assistant sector. The service examines images stored in a user’s camera roll and uses them to complete tasks or offer tailored suggestions.
Mayer’s broader ambition is for the platform to take care of everyday chores and decisions that might otherwise consume valuable time.
“A lot of what excites me is taking something that used to take you hours or minutes, and now getting it done in seconds,” she said.
She told The New York Times that Dazzle is particularly aimed at busy women, whom she hopes will see the benefits of having an AI assistant readily available.
“Women, this is my own bias, tend to take more photos and are more visual, and so being able to work with AI in a visual medium is fun,” Mayer said.
She added that the platform can gradually build an understanding of a user’s preferences, saying it “essentially understands your personality, your likes, your dislikes, because it know what you think looks good.”
Mayer said she has already used Dazzle to discover family activities during a trip to Venice, arrange a playdate for one of her daughters and choose a theme for her son’s birthday celebration.
The billionaire tech executive drew sharp criticism online, with some social media users accusing her of being a bad mother
The tech start up is her first push into the AI personal assistant market, with Dazzle analyzing images in users’ camera rolls to carry out tasks and make suggestions
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It’s not just organizing things either, she used Dazzle to throw suggestions at her for Halloween costumes, she said.
She hopes that Dazzle could help overburdened women who may have been reluctant to get on the AI bandwagon.
Mayer added: ‘So much of what I see with these assistants, they’re quite technical. There’s definitely a cohort of people, probably more women than men, that are too busy for that, and it’s also extremely jargon loaded and intimidating. So we built Dazzle to be more approachable.’
The move comes at a time amongst women who are running high profile tech companies that are worried there is a gender problem with AI.
According to the outlet, even Anthropic’s own president Daniela Amodei has raised alarms that AI is becoming a ‘tool that’s just for the guys’.
Mayer told the outlet: ‘I think gender balance will come in time, because this is a field that’s moving so quickly. I’m generally an optimist.’