LogInHolidays are not coming if you hate AI.
Last year, Coca-Cola's usually iconic Christmas ad got heavily criticized for its (poor) use of AI. If you thought the holidays would be better this year, I have sad news for you: the company released a new advert, and this time, even fewer humans from the AI studio Secret Level participated in its the creation than last year – 20, according to Secret Level, and only 5, as revealed in Coca-Cola's BTS footage.
The company believes that the tech has changed in a year, and this time, viewers will like it more.
"Last year people criticized the craftsmanship. But this year the craftsmanship is ten times better," Pratik Thakar, global VP and head of generative AI at Coca-Cola, told The Hollywood Reporter. "There will be people who criticize – we cannot keep everyone 100 percent happy. But if the majority of consumers see it in a positive way, it's worth going forward."
Alas, the majority of internet users don't see it positively. "Swapping human magic for pixel churn in the holiday ad proves corporate giants love slashing souls more than spreading cheer, and that genie just stole Christmas sparkle from real artists forever," said one X/Twitter user.
"Somebody needs some coal in their stockings this year," added another.
Redditors had a similar reaction, saying that Coca-Cola "doesn't want to pay working artists" or "promote real creativity. They want to starve people, and feed digital slop to others to maximise profit going exclusively into billionaires' pockets."
"I'm not sure why any brand would be proud to make an AI commercial, because the audience certainly isn't proud of you for it."
Probably the one person who's proud of it the most is Jason Zada, Secret Level's founder and chief creative officer, who hopes that viewers can't distinguish this ad from a traditional Hollywood animated movie (spoiler: they can).
"The best compliment I get is when people say a video doesn't look like AI," he told THR, and I would like to look those people in the eye. He thinks "haters on the Internet are the loudest" and have the wrong impression of AI.
"A lot of the people complaining last year were from the creative industry who were just afraid – afraid for their jobs, afraid for what it did. But I think the spot tested really well and average people really enjoyed it."
"The genie is out of the bottle," he concludes, "and you're not going to put it back in."
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