Toyota | Mirai

In 2017, the zero-emissions, hydrogen-fueled Mirai felt like the car of the future. To launch the Mirai in California, we decided to create 3300 custom Facebook videos – one for every potential customer of this incredibly unique vehicle. And to write these videos, we enlisted the most cutting edge technology we could think of—IBM’s Watson. (And yes, this was years before ChatGPT. Heck, even that’s out of date. This was pre-AI.)

Videos x 50| Human-Written

Based on what we knew about our audience (location, behavior, interests, occupation), we crafted the first 50 scripts to speak directly to them.

Training A.I. to Write

For the other 3250 scripts, it was Watson’s turn.

But how do you teach A.I. to write? 

With the help of production company Tool, we figured out that A.I. bots are pretty much like human babies. Feed the lil’ guys, and they grow. 

The first thing we did was take the 50 human-written scripts and feed them to Watson. Next, we had it "scrape the Internet," which basically means Watson checked out 1000's of websites and YouTube videos on each topic to learn about our targets’ interests and really, to learn English.

It was no surprise the thing didn't quite get it at first. But check out its progress over just a few weeks:

Videos x 400+ | A.I.-Written

Sure, some of the lines are weird, but all in all, the A.I.'s ability to pick up on what we were going for was nothing short of remarkable.

| Press

For the first time ever, Saatchi LA had a top-trending story on AdWeek.

| In Conclusion

Is this actually the start of the robot revolution? After working on this campaign, I'd have to say heck NO. At this point, A.I. isn't taking any creative jobs. If it were, I'd be living under a pseudonym in a country with more palm trees than LA. This little experiment took a team of over 40 people to crack, so if anything, all signs point to A.I. demanding more hands on deck, not fewer.*

*The above paragraph was written by A.I. Sorry, suckers.