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\u201cWhat Anthropic is doing is interesting because it\u2019s trying to give something intangible a physical culture,\u201d says Tom Garland, founder of brand consultancy Edition + Partners. \u201cYou can\u2019t \u2018photograph\u2019 AI, and it\u2019s difficult to dramatize. So pop-ups, objects, merch, printed matter \u2014 those things give it texture. They make it feel more legible in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where Anthropic leaned on fashion\u2019s pop-up model to build cultural cachet and trust, rival chatbot maker OpenAI has been commissioning creatives directly from fashion to help craft its first brand storytelling campaign for ChatGPT. Its first three-part film series Everyday Moments<\/em>, released last September, was directed by Miles Jay (known for fashion and music work including Adidas and Nike campaigns), with stills by fashion photographer Samuel Bradley (who\u2019s shot for Vogue<\/em> and worked with the likes of Burberry and Lacoste) and styling by Carlos Nazario, whose portfolio spans Gucci, Prada, Marni, and more.<\/p>\n It\u2019s part of a broader trend of tech poaching fashion talent, which several sources in the creative industries believe has been ramping up in recent months. Garland says his agency has experienced rising demand from tech brands coming to him with the same brief: we know what the product does, but how do we make people care? Or, how do we stop looking like a company and start looking like a brand?<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these businesses have spent years overindexing on functionality, clarity, and performance language. Now, they are realizing that distinctiveness lives somewhere else, too. It lives in codes, taste, tone, casting, image systems, language, physical experience, and community,\u201d Garland continues. \u201cThey are looking to fashion and lifestyle, because those worlds are much better at turning products into symbols and are used to doing it at speed. Every time a new collection comes out, we are expected to understand what the consumer wants in that moment and produce something relevant, over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s films position the chatbot as a supportive, everyday presence that aids users\u2019 real-life interactions, at the same time eschewing highly polished futuristic AI visuals for a lo-fi human feel.<\/p>\n