Are AI Execs Too Out of Touch To Build For the General Public?

October 28, 2026

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Former Yahoo CEO and early Google engineer Marissa Mayer is catching a lot of flak for how she uses AI. In an interview about her new app Dazzle, an AI assistant that learns from your camera roll, Mayer poses what she believes is an impressive flex for the product: It helped her come up with three bullet points about her 10-year-old daughter for a birthday presentation at school, describing her as “empathetic, creative, and an animal lover.”

It’s a vague description, like a generic horoscope — it could probably describe a lot of 10-year-olds. Some onlookers, like progressive activist Leah Greenberg, marveled that “the fact that Marissa Mayer would voluntarily disclose this to a reporter is a pretty good demonstration of how deeply the culture of Silicon Valley has diverged from the rest of humanity.” […] After publication, Mayer defended herself in a long X post. She claims she was not relying on Dazzle to explain her child to her, but rather, she was testing what her prototype could do — it resurfaced photos of “forgotten kindergarten projects,” like a “snake devenomer” or “sandcat playground,” illustrating her daughter’s creativity and care for animals.

Fair enough. But Mayer remarks in the same interview that people could also use her AI to outsource the mental load of “figuring out the theme for your child’s birthday party.” She says she’s used her app to plan a playdate for her daughter, book family activities on vacation, and decide what to be for Halloween. She even proposes that her AI assistant could coordinate plans with her husband’s AI assistant. When the reporter asks her if it’s depressing to imagine this “frictionless future planned by AI,” Mayer replies, “I haven’t really thought that through.” The bigger question is: What should we outsource to AI? “What feels like grunt work to someone might be a meaningful part of parenthood for someone else,” says Fortune’s Emma Hinchliffe.

Michael Tasner, Founder and CEO of No Joke Marketing, adds: “Customers are drowning in AI slop, and they can spot it. Use AI for the low-stakes work behind the scenes. Keep the moments that matter to your customers human. Human connection is becoming the new premium.”