"In an announcement, Elon Musk's AI company xAI unveiled a new tool called "Halftime" which "dynamically weaves AI-generated ads into the scenes you're watching." Instead of cutting to an ad break, Halftime manipulates the characters onscreen into deviating from the script and prominently brandishing a product of a marketer's choice. The tool is meant to make ad "breaks feel like part of the story instead of interruptions," the company said."
"A video demo shows off what this would look like in real TV series. During an episode of the legal drama "Suits," Harvey Specter raises an AI-generated can of Coke in his hand and presents it to the camera, stopping his dialogue mid-sentence. Or in an episode of "Friends," Joey reaches for a new pair of Beats headphones and puts them on with a smile on his face, a blatant anachronism for a series that started its run in the mid-90s."
"Halftime wasn't made by xAI, but by a trio of University of Waterloo students who participated in the company's recent hackathon in San Francisco. Krish Garg, the software's cocreator, boasted in a LinkedIn post that he had won the event "by making ads invisible." "Halftime generates cutscenes and product placements in real time, perfectly matched to your interests," he added."
Halftime is an AI tool that dynamically inserts product placements into scenes by altering characters and dialogue instead of using traditional ad breaks. The system can generate on-screen branded objects and cause actors to stop mid-line to present products, with clickable links leading to product pages. Generated placements can be personalized to viewer interests and then removed when the viewer exits the ad experience. Halftime originated from a hackathon project by University of Waterloo students, raising concerns about narrative manipulation, anachronisms, and the commercialization of film and television content.
Read at Futurism
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