David Beckham’s wellness brand IM8 wanted a Matrix moment—and they got exactly that without their star athlete, Aryna Sabalenka, ever stepping foot on set. The team created an entirely AI-generated ad featuring a digital twin of the world’s No. 1 tennis player, which racked up 35 million views on Instagram within 24 hours and lit up Times Square during the U.S. Open. Inspired by Neo’s iconic choice scene, the production leaned heavily on GenAI tools to build a stylized AI campaign with Aryna at its pixel-perfect center.
The creative process was a multi-tool symphony. Figma hosted the pre-production shotlist and visual references, while Midjourney and Gemini helped with styles and prompt refinement. Aryna’s likeness was recreated with Ideogram AI from a single image, and her voice was cloned using ElevenLabs to deliver the campaign’s kicker: “The best choose the best.” Cleverly, the team avoided on-camera dialogue and leaned on cutting-edge animation tools like Veo 3 and Kling to sidestep uncanny valley detours—crucial when your talent is entirely synthetic.
As for the pièce de résistance? The opening shot, crafted using a rare JSON prompt fed through Gemini, took inspiration from a well-known Ikea styling reference, morphing into the IM8 logo before opening the film. In the era of digital-first stars and schedule conflicts, this campaign is a showcase for how brands can build narrative-driven content leveraging AI tools and speedy production processes.
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