Vodafone is testing an AI ‘actor’ to promote its merchandise as an alternative of paying a human to do it

Vodafone made a industrial starring an AI avatar posing as an actual woman. That is attention-grabbing as a result of Vodafone is a significant world model and never a fly-by-night TikTok firm utilizing a ridiculous deepfake of Jackson Galaxy to promote cat toys.

The tells within the industrial are apparent and what one would anticipate. The AI avatar’s hair is a bit off, which ruins the charade that it is a actual individual. The bodily mannerisms and talking tone are additionally wonky. A facial mole strikes round at one level. It is AI. You realize the drill.

The corporate responded to a query on a message board as to why it could not put “an actual individual in entrance of the digital camera” by saying that is merely an experiment. It mentioned it was “testing completely different kinds of promoting — this time with AI,” and that “AI is a lot part of on a regular basis life today that we additionally strive it out in promoting.”

This is not the primary Vodafone advert to characteristic generative AI. It launched a totally AI-generated industrial final yr that spurred a bit of controversy, regardless of trying completely terrible. Social media platforms are additionally becoming increasingly littered with AI-generated virtual influencers.