Marissa Mayer used AI to describe her daughter after drawing a blank on a school assignment, prompting a wave of criticism from people who found the anecdote less charming than she apparently expected.
The former Yahoo chief executive shared the story during an interview about Dazzle AI, her new personal assistant app for phones. To demonstrate how it worked, Mayer recalled a homework task her nine-year-old daughter received in 2025.
The teacher had asked for three words explaining what made the child special. Mayer said she could not think of an answer, so she consulted Dazzle instead. The app described her daughter as “empathetic,” “creative” and an “animal lover.” Efficient, certainly. Heartwarming was more debatable.
Social media users quickly criticised Mayer for outsourcing the answer. One person wrote, “This woman has spent next to no time with her kid. My god.” Another said, “If you can't think of 3 good things about your kid, you shouldn't be a parent.”
A third user offered a slightly more charitable possibility: “I hope this is an exaggeration to make for an interesting click-baity article.”
Mayer served as Yahoo’s chief executive from 2012 until 2017. She was hired to revive the struggling internet company, but her tenure ended without the turnaround investors had hoped for. Her latest product is also intended to make difficult tasks easier, though this particular example mostly made the internet ask why identifying three qualities in her own child required software.
