Zain Kahn’s Post

I watched this with an open mind. Really did. And when I stopped to feel my feelings, my first reaction was, dang that was so cool, so realistic. I was blown away. My next reaction was, I’ve never seen a car commercial where I didn’t care one little bit about the car. I didn’t want the car. Like at all. In fact, if anything, after watching this I actually like Volvo *less*. What really tickles my brain here is seeing the imagery and knowing it was made by a computer. My conclusion is: AI generates amazing imagery. No doubt about that. Can it actually tell a story? Can it actually illicit emotion? Not saying it can’t. Not saying it won’t. Major advances have been made in 2 years. But in imagery, not emotion (other than shock and awe, but that’s a temp thing that will wear off) The battle cry seems to be “just wait it’s inevitable”. But is it? The $1 trillion+ question

Sorry to say. This looks like an amateur VFX showreel. No storytelling, no positioning. Hopefully this is the work of some AI enthusiast (you would be lucky if Volvo does not sue) and not the real Volvo brand behind it. Because this sort of stuff is exactly what will make great brands mediocre in a jiffy. Consumers are not going to be impressed by how little time or money brands manage to spend on a commercial using AI. They are going to look for a real value proposition told creatively.

I think it is also worth considering what is lost when you skip the process of actually making things. So many moments, ideas, etc. happen when you are creating. AI is no doubt going to be a useful tool in filmmaking and many other industries, but the conversation "will it replace?" is getting old fast and is mostly clickbait and fear mongering. It should be "how can we effectively use AI to (Reduce cost, speed up timelines, make even cooler things, etc.)?"

Somebody still has to decide the story to tell. Somebody still has to decide if this tells that story. Animation used to be drawn cell by cell. Animation changed. Storytelling did not.

I make videos for various brands and AI is part of my process. However, one of the challenges of using AI to create videos is brand consistency and lack of creative freedom. I agree that the AI can be used to write and create content, but it is not the best tool to promote a brand. Making a well balanced ad that can reach relevant audiences is not cheap. Therefore, in order for me to create a well designed ad that is dynamic or that can later be changed as needed by my clients, I normally prefer to use the old proven cinematic techniques and classical hollywood filming and editing styles. That being said, when I want to build a brand for my clients, I always get far better results just by filming using video cameras, because AI generated videos are too random and uncontrollable.

Advertising is 5% ideation, 95% informed execution. AI helps with ideation whilst squeezing the costs of execution towards 1% of costs for traditional production workflows & pipelines*. This is happening, and a lot of people in my industry need to come to terms with it - not an abstract 'yadda yadda' about whether AI is creative, art etc. *Executing the idea of this spot would cost you 1 million bucks, not some, say, 10k for the guy and his machine for 24hrs; Results would still be better & more client friendly, but certainly not 100 times better. And AI is catching up on a daily basis.

“Made with AI” is very misleading. You even said in your post it had been edited. This was made using the assistance of AI based on that fact. It would be nice to give context on what was edited, and what here was generated by AI. It’s also worth noting a lot of these AI models are trained off of copyrighted material without permission. This isn’t a “one and done” in my opinion as a technology, it needs regulation.

Not making campaigns better, just cheaper. It’s wonderful for facilitating small budgets and a quick delivery. Post production, in the digital age, has been shrinking since the 90’s. Machines were once larger and slower as was the post team; Composed of at least one editor, one assistant, a GRFX artist and at times a sound designer. Today one person can do it all. Post production was a resource to facilitated vision but also redesign and fix what was incomplete. The post process today, with AI tools, perhaps facilitates the original art direction but that in my opinion curtails the creative process not making it better.

I want to understand the brief or command they give to generate this and how did they check the copyright and other creative usage creditibility before using it. Some guide to this will be helpful!

Thank you for sharing this Zain Kahn. On the one hand, I'm amazed at the quality, but on the other hand I'm not, considering the rapid development of the last few months. In terms of transparency, I miss a watermark or disclaimer at the beginning/end, wherever it is, that it is a video created with the help of AI. Do you agree?