Search giant takes direct aim at Apple's year-long AI delays with pointed marketing campaign ahead of August 20 launch.
Google has launched a provocative new advertising campaign for its upcoming Pixel 10 series. The Ad directly mocks Apple's much-delayed artificial intelligence features, particularly the promised enhancements to Siri. The 30-second spot, titled "Soon," represents one of Google's most pointed attacks on its rival to date.
The Ad That Started a Tech War
Released on August 4, 2025, across YouTube and social media platforms, the minimalist advertisement features a silhouetted view of the Pixel 10 Pro before revealing the device in full. Set to the instrumental version of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's "The Next Episode," the ad's voiceover delivers a cutting message without ever mentioning Apple by name.
"If you buy a new phone because of a feature that's coming soon, but it's been coming soon for a full year, you could change your definition of 'soon', or you could just change your phone," the narrator states, as the new Pixel 10 appears on screen.
The ad concludes with a firm declaration: August 20, 2025—the date of Google's Made by Google event where the Pixel 10 series will officially launch.
Targeting Apple's Achilles Heel
The timing and content of Google's campaign are far from coincidental. Apple unveiled its Apple Intelligence platform at WWDC 2024 in June, promising revolutionary AI-powered features including a dramatically enhanced Siri with personal context awareness, in-app action control, and on-screen understanding capabilities. These features were prominently used to market the iPhone 16 series launch in September 2024.
However, more than a year later, these promised capabilities remain largely unavailable to users. Apple's Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, Greg Joswiak, confirmed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the Siri upgrades would now arrive in 2026, citing that "the feature set did not meet Apple's quality standards in internal testing."
According to The Verge, Apple's SVP of Software Craig Federighi revealed in a recent all-hands meeting that the delay was blamed on the California-based tech giant using a hybrid architecture for Siri. The company is now reportedly working on a new version of its virtual assistant with an updated architecture.
Google's Strategic Positioning
The ad represents more than just competitive ribbing—it's a calculated move to position Google as the leader in mobile AI implementation. While Apple has struggled with its rollout, Google has steadily integrated its Gemini AI across the Pixel ecosystem, offering features that are available today rather than perpetually "coming soon."
This isn't Google's first foray into competitive advertising against Apple. The company has previously built campaigns around its Night Sight camera capabilities and memorably parodied Jony Ive's design videos for the Pixel 5a, celebrating
The Irony Factor
There's a certain irony to Google mocking delayed features given the company's own history. Google itself has a long reputation as "the king of killing projects."
While Google takes shots at Apple for missing a single feature shipment, Google itself has a long track record of discontinuing services and features that users have come to rely on. This includes everything from Google Reader to more recent casualties in their product lineup.
