Meta has launched a new brand campaign arguing that artificial intelligence will strengthen human connection rather than weaken it. Yet the company’s hopeful message arrives with an unusually dark soundtrack: David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a song built around the news that Earth has only five years remaining.
The contrast has quickly become the most discussed element of the 45-second film, titled “The Future Is for Everyone.” Unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on July 23, the advertisement opens with black-and-white images and anxious headlines about AI-driven job losses and isolation before shifting into bright scenes of families, creators and friends reconnecting.
Meta Bets on People
“Some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected,” the narrator says near the beginning of the film. The visual tone then changes, moving from anxious headlines to a child with a butterfly, people dancing on a rooftop, teenagers swimming, families laughing and friends embracing.
Meta’s products, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and its AI-powered glasses, appear around those human moments rather than replacing them. The narrator describes Meta as a company that has spent 22 years connecting 3.5 billion people and says its underlying purpose will remain unchanged as technology develops.
The film closes with the campaign’s central declaration: “We’re betting on people, and we like those odds.” Zuckerberg reinforced that position in a post accompanying the video, saying Meta wants to give people tools to reach their potential and ensure that technology’s benefits are distributed widely.
The advertisement is the first part of a broader paid and earned campaign expected to run across social platforms, connected television and other channels over the coming months. It was created by Meta’s internal creative team, narrated by a company employee and features tattoo artist Ruby Quilter, Kylie Jenner and New York Knicks player Jalen Brunson.
The Soundtrack Complicates the Pitch
The campaign’s polished optimism becomes more complicated because of “Five Years,” the opening track from Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The song imagines humanity being told that the planet is dying and that only five years remain.
Meta uses a passage that repeatedly refers to different kinds of people, which suits the advertisement’s inclusive theme when separated from the full narrative. The selected section does not include the song’s stark opening announcement or its blunt line that “Earth was really dying.”
That omission has led critics to argue that the track has been stripped of the context that gives it emotional force. The people in Bowie’s song are brought together because they are confronting extinction, not because technology has made the future more accessible.
Jeremy D. Larson, deputy director of Pitchfork, described the musical choice as potentially “really ignorant or really insidious,” while also suggesting that its uncomfortable fit may make the advertisement unusually memorable.
Meta has rejected the idea that the song should be read as simply pessimistic. Company spokesperson Francis Brennan pointed to comments attributed to Bowie in 1972 and emphasized the artist’s interest in “having optimism for the future.” Bowie reportedly wanted to turn public fear of an increasingly technological future into a more hopeful response.
That explanation gives Meta a defensible artistic interpretation, but it does not remove the tension. Bowie’s recording remains rooted in panic, grief and impending destruction, even if the artist also intended to challenge the fear surrounding technological change.
An Answer to AI Anxiety
The campaign arrives as technology companies face growing difficulty persuading the public that rapid AI development will produce broadly shared benefits. Meta is not advertising one narrow feature. It is presenting a worldview in which AI becomes another stage of its long-running mission to connect people.
Meta chief marketing officer Denise Moreno described the current debate as ranging from “existential dread to utopian visions.” She said the company is taking a different position, one in which AI gives people greater agency and helps them spend more time doing what they value.
That argument is aimed at a public that is using AI more often while remaining deeply uncertain about its consequences. A June 2026 Pew Research Center survey found that 40% of U.S. adults expect AI to have a negative effect on society over the next 20 years, while only 16% anticipate a positive effect. The same research found that 63% believe AI is advancing too quickly.
Those findings help explain why Meta’s advertisement begins with fear rather than ignoring it. The company acknowledges public anxiety, then moves past it within seconds and replaces it with images of creativity, belonging and ordinary life. It is a deliberate attempt to shift the AI discussion away from model capabilities and safety warnings toward emotional familiarity.
The approach also differs sharply from Anthropic’s recent “Hope in Hard Questions” campaign, which lingers on images of fire, surveillance, homelessness and cemeteries before moving toward a more hopeful ending. Meta’s film spends far less time examining risks. Its argument is that pessimism should not be allowed to determine the outcome.
Optimism Backed by Major Spending
Meta’s upbeat positioning carries considerable financial weight. The company expects capital expenditures of between $115 billion and $135 billion in 2026, with much of the increase directed toward AI infrastructure and Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta reported $200.97 billion in revenue for 2025 and an average of 3.58 billion daily users across its family of apps in December.
That scale means the campaign is doing more than improving the image of a single product. It is supporting one of the largest corporate technology investments underway and framing Meta as the company that will make advanced AI broadly available through services people already use.
The timing is also notable because Meta is preparing to report second-quarter results on July 29, when investors are expected to examine whether its heavy AI spending is producing visible commercial progress. The campaign offers a public-facing narrative for that investment: AI infrastructure is not only about computing power or advertising efficiency, but about expanding individual capability.
A Memorable Contradiction
“The Future Is for Everyone” makes Meta’s AI position unmistakable. The company is rejecting the language of inevitable displacement and presenting itself as confident that people will adapt, create and remain connected.
Its soundtrack, however, ensures the message will not be received as uncomplicated optimism. “Five Years” carries a warning that cannot be fully separated from its chorus of humanity. That may be a creative miscalculation, or it may be the reason the campaign has attracted attention beyond the usual audience for corporate advertising.
Either way, Meta has placed a cultural contradiction at the center of its AI pitch. The advertisement asks viewers to trust that technology will serve people, while the music beneath it recalls a world discovering that its future has almost disappeared.
Comments