Google recently unveiled a series of Super Bowl ads showcasing how small businesses across all 50 states are using Gemini AI. However, cheese enthusiasts might notice something peculiar about the Wisconsin ad. As pointed out by @natejhake on X (formerly Twitter), the ad shows Gemini AI generating a claim that Gouda accounts for “50 to 60 percent of the world’s cheese consumption.” This statistic, however, isn’t entirely accurate.

While Gouda is certainly a popular cheese in Europe, it doesn’t hold the same dominance worldwide. “While Gouda is likely the most common single variety in world trade, it is almost assuredly not the most widely consumed,” explains Andrew Novakovic, E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics Emeritus at Cornell University, in an interview with The Verge.

It’s unclear where Gemini sourced this claim, but it doesn’t seem to be entirely fabricated. A site called Cheese.com contains the same statistic, a figure that Reddit users debated over a decade ago. Even so, Novakovic notes, “I don’t think there is hard data to substantiate consumption of particular varieties of cheeses on a global scale. My guess is that Indian Paneer or the ubiquitous ‘fresh’ cheeses of South America, Africa, and western and southern Asia have far larger volumes than Gouda.”

The ad does include a disclaimer in fine print beneath Gemini’s response: “This is a creative writing aid, and is not intended to be factual.” Yet the claim raises questions about accuracy, especially when the ad portrays a business owner relying on Gemini AI to write website descriptions.

When asked for clarification, Google pointed The Verge to a response on X by Google Cloud apps president Jerry Dischler. “Not a hallucination. Gemini is grounded in the Web — and users can always check the results and references. In this case, multiple sites across the web include the 50-60% stat,” Dischler said.

This incident highlights an ongoing challenge for AI tools: balancing creativity with factual accuracy. It also comes on the heels of Google integrating AI into its Workspace products and increasing its subscription prices, signaling the company’s deeper investment in AI despite occasional missteps.

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