A new Under Armour commercial from production company Tool, created with the help of artificial intelligence, has caused a stir in the production community, with some seeing it as a worrying new sign that directors could soon become superfluous in the creation of certain types of advertising.

The latest: Director of the Under Armour spot responds to criticisms 

The 60-second spot, directed by Wes Walker, focuses on British boxer and UA endorser Anthony Joshua. Much of the spot shows what appears to be a giant stone likeness of Joshua standing in the desert. There are also brief sections of live-action footage showing Joshua in a boxing ring, but no new footage of Joshua was shot for the film.

Rather, Walker created the boxer’s likeness based on existing UA brand assets. The voiceover was AI generated, using recordings of the athlete’s voice. For the live-action segments, Walker added a stylized sheen to footage originally shot by other directors for previous UA commercials.

The spot is the latest example of Under Armour and Tool using AI to streamline the production process. The two companies have been working to create a dataset representing UA’s “visual DNA,” which can then create new assets.

A heated debate about the UA ad erupted Wednesday on social media after production company BWGTBLD—which reps Walker in Germany but was not involved in the spot—posted it on Instagram.

One of the first commenters was director Gustav Johansson of Scandinavian production company Newland, whose 2022 UA commercial with Joshua featured the boxing ring footage that resurfaced in Walker’s spot.

“If I’m not going crazy it also [includes] footage from a commercial I did and André Chementoff shot?” Johansson wrote.

Johansson and Walker debated the issue in the comments, with Walker saying Tool had secured the proper licenses, and Johansson replying: “not questioning any copyright breach just moral rights.”

72andSunny, the agency behind Johansson’s spot, provided the footage, which is owned by UA, even if Johansson himself wasn’t personally made aware.

Also read: Avoiding AI brand mistakes

Walker’s spot also includes 2023 footage from a second director, Maik Schuster of Iconoclast Germany. Neither Johansson nor Schuster was included in an original list of credits for the spot—which Tool and BWGTBLD posted on Instagram, and which Ad Age received as well.

The credits list was later amended to include both directors.

AI’s larger threat to directors

The dispute over crediting soon led to a broader discussion on the Instagram post about AI’s threat more generally. While UA clearly owns the rights to all footage shot for its previous commercials, many see the company’s move to train AI on previous brand assets as a threat to directors everywhere.

Tool said the AI approach solved a practical problem‚ as Joshua was preparing for a fight and unavailable for a live shoot. The company has also been promoting the ad as a marvel of innovation in the AI space. Others, however, are accusing the company of hastening the timeline of when AI will replace humans in the production process.

“90% of agencies are already dying to cut directors out of the process, due to us being an annoying roadblock in getting what they want to satisfy an increasingly lazy and fear-driven creative pipeline, and this kind of work is only proving it’s the next logical step,” said one commenter on the BWGTBLD post.

Brian Boring, VP of global brand creative at Under Armour, told Ad Age that the approach the company took with the Walker spot was born out of necessity, with the athlete unavailable to shoot. He called the Walker spot a “mixed media piece” with a combination of CGI, live action and some AI—and said it’s a mischaracterization to suggest UA is training AI on athlete footage.

“The creators and the directors and the agencies are always going to have a place in the creative process,” he said. “As far as what we’re doing at Under Armour, I don’t think it’s fair to say we’re training an AI, per se, on any athlete footage, or footage we don’t have complete IP control over. We are experimenting with some different things internally, but we’re in no way building something of that capacity.”

Dustin Callif, Tool’s president and managing partner, added that the AI training the company has been doing mostly involves lower-funnel marketing materials, not big video spots like this one. He added that the crediting issue involving the other two directors was likely an “oversight.” 

Callif added that he understood the trepidation about AI but felt some in the production community were being “irrational” about it, focusing only on the threat—which he said isn’t as imminent as some would think—and not the opportunity.

“We are so far away from AI being able to train on a dataset and all of a sudden spit out a 30-second commercial,” he said. “There’s a lot of sensitivities around AI. Immediately people were like, ‘Oh my God, AI trained on this footage and they generated a new spot.’ And that’s not what happened.” 

At the same time, Callif said he wasn’t going to shy away from—or apologize for—experimenting with AI.

“We are using these processes to help us save time and provide new solutions to clients,” he said. “That’s innovation, and that’s OK. The reality is, we are trying to provide as many creative solutions and opportunities for our brands, as well as our directors. When there’s an opportunity to go do a shoot, great. When there’s not an opportunity, there’s alternative ways to approach it.”

A canary in the coal mine

Ad Age spoke with the heads of several production companies on Wednesday about the debate. 

Patrick Milling-Smith, co-founder and CEO of Smuggler, said he understood the concerns but felt AI is still a long way from producing what humans can.

“My instinct is it’s going to be a bit like automated cars. Amazing, unbelievable for the first 90% but quite a long way away for the final 10,” he said. “Trying to get a performance out of AI and edit dialogue, etc., is a pretty high hill to climb for a bit.”

The executive producer at another production company, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said it felt like a “canary in the coal mine” moment—that brands making new work from old brand assets could have a seismic effect.

“Brands own everything, and they have an immense library that can be trained,” this person said. “Think of Nike—all the spots, content images fed into AI, and then you can ask for anything. Already in Runway I can say, ‘18mm lens, circling fast paced around the character in the style of (blank) director.’”

The exec added: “Why pay $1 million for a spot when you can make it for a fraction and it will look and feel similar? This one [the UA spot] isn’t great yet, but in one or two years we could see one that floors everyone, like the Sora videos. [Brands] have the celeb deals. The celeb is digitized. The voice is digitized. So it’s really existential.” 

It remains to be seen where production ends up after the AI evolution, this person added.

“Is this what a painter or photographer felt like when they saw the first movie? Or is this really the beginning of the end of a certain way of making things and we move into a ‘prompt anything you can imagine’ era?” the exec said. “Either way, isn’t story and feelings still what matters? Humans are watching it and buying, right?”

Several observers of the UA debate added that it’s time to institute more rules to protect directors.

“Do we decide this kind of work is okay?” asked one commenter on the BWGTBLD post. “If yes, under what circumstances, with what credit, and which [sic] what compensation. There is no question this technology is here to stay, but I feel like we must dictate how it will be used. I know when I compose music, and it’s re-used in any way, I get usage compensation. I feel like this is no different. It’s time to write some rules, my friends.”