Merriam-Webster pulled off a rare internet feat this week by making dictionaries go viral after a video announcement that initially seemed like a genuine AI tech rollout. The dictionary’s official account on X posted a slick, dramatic 35-second announcement with purple gradients and floating buzzwords, claiming to introduce their “latest large language model”.
The whole presentation was a perfect parody of the AI hype that’s everywhere right now, but the twist was absolutely brilliant. The post on X read, “We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25,” making everyone think the dictionary company had finally caved to the tech trend.
The video, with its robotic-sounding male voice-over, used all the corporate jargon you hear when new AI is announced. The voice-over claimed their new “LLM” had over “217,000 rigorously defined parameters,” and a line that everyone loved, “It never hallucinates”. It also promised that the tool “does not require a data center and uses no electricity,” which started to make things seem a lot less like AI.
The makers of the dictionary fooled everyone
However, the real punchline came halfway through when the video revealed a rotating 3D image of the 12th edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which is an actual, physical book. The illusion was shattered by a woman’s voice-over that perfectly drove the point home: “There’s artificial intelligence and then there’s actual intelligence”.
The whole gag was a fantastic way to announce the new 12th edition of the dictionary, which is the first hard-copy revision in 22 years. The new edition is set for release on November 18, 2025, the date mentioned in the fake AI announcement. The latest Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary features a massive update with over 5,000 new words, including contemporary terms like “dad bod,” “hard pass,” and “rizz,” along with over 1,000 new phrases and idioms.
They also took the time to enhance entries for the top lookups and added more than 20,000 additional usage examples. Some of the new, popular additions are words reflecting modern life and technology like “cold brew,” “farm-to-table,” “doomscroll,” “WFH,” and “ghost kitchen”.
As you can imagine, a bunch of people who didn’t watch the full video were a bit confused and even “upset” at first, thinking the company had gone full AI. One X user, Megan (@dxxzaii), hilariously asked in a reply, “Where is the data stored then?”. Merriam-Webster’s cheeky response quickly gained traction: “On pages made of paper and then hopefully your brain.” To be fair to the user, the setup was pretty convincing. When Megan later joked about their own question being “idiotic,” the Merriam-Webster account showed some great personality by defending them, saying, “Don’t talk about our friend Megan like that. You’re smart”.
Published: Oct 4, 2025 01:58 pm