Severance is back! And while Season 2 of the mysterious workplace thriller is excellent, some fans are taking exception with the show's official podcast and its rather ironic ads for an AI workplace productivity tool.
The Severance Podcast is a watch-through show that finds director Ben Stiller and lead actor Adam Scott following along with Severance episode by episode. They blasted through the first season with daily episodes earlier this month, and now they're following along with Season 2 week by week.
For the sixth episode of Season 1, "Hide and Seek," Stiller and Scott brought on Severance editor Geoff Richman as a guest. Rather than focusing on the episode itself, the fan comments on Spotify mostly draw attention to one of the ads: Confluence, which is workplace productivity software created by Australian company Atlassian.
Scott's ad read notes: "A space where AI streamlines the things that normally eat up their time, letting teams generate, organize and deliver work faster. In fact, with Confluence, teams can see a 5.2 percent average boost in productivity in one year."
One fan commented, "Not gonna lie, it's a little weird to hear ads about AI productivity software!" Others suggested that it was ironic to interview the editor while reading such ads, since AI could be a threat to the editor's job.
Another commenter suggested that the ad seemed like "a joke within the podcast," because "it seems so insane for a podcast about the dehumanized world of Severance to promote a workplace run by AI." The ad does feel a lot like a joke, particularly thanks to the generically jovial music playing in the background.
AI workplace tools aside, Severance's second season is currently airing on Apple TV+. Read our review of Season 2 here.