Lexus AI-scripted ad surprisingly sentimental

The advert for the Lexus ES is unexpectedly emotional. — AFP Relaxnews

This week Lexus shared what is claimed to be the world's first commercial that was entirely scripted by AI; under the direction of Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald, the pair produced an unexpectedly emotional advert.

As AI is becoming more humanoid, rather than just being used to optimize various mundane processes, companies are integrating the technology into their business models to bring a human touch into customer-enterprise interactions. Lexus, on the other hand, used artificial intelligence to replace what is generally seen as a completely human task: writing the script of a commercial. This advert for the Lexus ES, titled Driven By Intuition, whose script was completely written using the technology, was directed by Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald. Between the two, a surprisingly dramatic short film was developed to showcase the car's automatic emergency braking system featuring both definitively human and robotic elements.

To create the AI responsible for the script, Lexus's creative agency worked with technical partner Visual Voice who used "IBM Watson to analyse a range of external audio, text and visual data and extract insight on what makes content award-worthy from which the AI could contribute to the creation of a script outline that would be emotionally intelligent and entertaining for the audience." Basically, the artificial intelligence system analysed 15 years' worth of award-winning luxury and car commercials to create the script with the help of emotional intelligence data provided by Unruly, an advertising company specialising in the development of ad campaigns built upon emotional data.

Macdonald was particularly interested in how "the AI gave a fellow machine sentience". The script was full of recognisable human emotions while still keeping a non-human machine as the star.

– AFP Relaxnews