Microsoft has disclosed that one of its latest advertisements incorporates generative AI—can you recognize it?

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      In January, Microsoft launched a one-minute advertisement for its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, which has garnered 42,000 views on YouTube and incited 302 comments about the hardware. Notably absent from the discussions are any mentions of the AI-generated visuals featured in the ad, a detail that viewers only learned about when Microsoft revealed it this week.

      The company seems to take pride in this clever move, as their blog kicks off with a dramatic overview of the evolution of film, suggesting that generative AI tools represent the next milestone in this progression.

      The blog post, authored by Jay Tan, explains that the Visual Design team turned to generative AI for the ad due to a tight schedule of just one month for planning, filming, and editing. They utilized AI tools to quickly draft the script, storyboards, and pitch deck, completing this process in a few days—a task that Tan notes would typically require weeks.

      The subsequent phase of the project was reportedly more challenging, involving the fine-tuning of prompts to achieve the desired results. Designers provided natural language descriptions to one AI tool, which then converted them into a suitable “prompt format” for use with other AI tools. They experimented with thousands of different prompts before reaching their goals, but according to them, this approach ultimately proved more efficient than conventional methods. The team estimates they saved “90% of the time and cost” that would normally be expected.

      When project deadlines are paramount, one might resort to any means necessary to conserve time. However, having attempted to apply generative AI myself, I empathize with whoever was tasked with refining prompts thousands of times.

      That said, a Microsoft advertisement appears to be an ideal scenario for incorporating AI-generated imagery. The excessively clean and minimalistic aesthetic of Microsoft’s sets and backgrounds essentially mirrors the characteristics of AI-generated visuals. Everything seems a bit too perfect, overly polished, and ultimately somewhat “off.” Therefore, it is unsurprising that viewers interpreted the AI elements as simply more of Microsoft's typical airbrushed visuals.

      Upon closer inspection, however, some peculiarities emerge—like a pair of very flat glasses, a questionable teddy bear, and several benign objects that seem fine at a distance, but become ambiguous under closer observation.

      Nonetheless, for the most part, the AI elements are not overtly apparent. Naturally, the Design team incorporated real people for all the close-up hand shots and used editing software to eliminate any odd AI artifacts or hallucinations, ensuring that no glaring “uncanny valley” moments were left for viewers to notice. Well done, Microsoft, you managed to fool us all!

      Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…

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