Microsoft revealed just a few days ago that one of its most recent ads was partially generated with artificial intelligence without the public warning it. The video, a 56 -second spot to promote the laptop surface, was published on January 30 and until now it had gone unnoticed as a product of AI.
In the announcement, which exceeds 46,000 views on YouTube, different people are shown using surface in varied environments, highlighting its main attributes such as the touch screen and the long battery life. According to The Verge, none of the main comments detected the use of AI in its creation.
The project was developed in just one month thanks to the use of generative artificial intelligence tools, which represented a saving of 90% in time and costs against a traditional production process.
-Brian Towsend, visual designer of Windows + devices, explained that with limited resources and adjusted deadlines, AI allowed them to accelerate stages such as writing of scripts, the elaboration of storyboards and the preparation of the visual proposal in just a few days.
The team worked indicating an anonymous chatbot what they were looking for, refining the results after reviewing thousands of suggestions generated by AI. However, aware of the current limitations of technology – especially in the realistic generation of human movements -, they chose to complement the material with shots filmed traditionally, as hands of hands writing on key. Also, to avoid displacements to different locations, they used the AI to simulate different funds. Even so, they recognized that sometimes the tools of AI produced “hallucinations” or inaccurate images, which were manually corrected during postproduction.
Microsoft stressed that this experience demonstrates how artificial intelligence can democratize audiovisual creation, allowing more people, with curiosity and imagination, to develop professional projects without large budgets. Although they did not specify what tools they used for this ad, the company has Microsoft Copilot, capable of creating scripts, visual material and video projects from simple instructions.
