The latest installment of standout AI activations includes a new video AI model out of China called MiniMax that is behind some viral posts on social media. Also, ad agencies and brands lean into the world of virtual twins and humans, a core concept that is catching on with marketers—one, Le Pain Quotidien, even made a twin avatar of Alain Coumont, its founder and creative director.

Also, AI video creation platform D-ID launched a tool that helps build virtual humans. It can take a video selfie of a person and translate what that person is saying, in their voice, in dozens of languages.

Meanwhile, AI continues to inspire advertisers, who are using the generative technology to create new identities and icons in their marketing, as seen by IPG Health’s Studio Rx, which used AI to breathe life into a new mascot.

Here are Ad Age’s Top 5 AI marketing activations.

5. DDB wants this AI to uninspire

Last month, George Strakhov, DDB Worldwide’s global head of creative technology, walked Ad Age’s Asa Hiken through the agency’s AI playground to show off a number of specialized bots that staff used to find inspiration, mostly. But one bot, BadIdeasBot, was designed to surface uninspired ideas. The bot was a unique twist on how most marketers talk about using AI—as a tool to brainstorm ad strategies.

“For our industry, it’s really important to kick against the gravity of the cliché,” Strakhov told Hiken.

Strakhov, who is based in Amsterdam, had already trained about 10% of DDB’s 6,000 staff members to incorporate AI into their work, Hiken reported.

Most of the customized bots were made to get creative juices flowing that could be helpful, such as Freak Factory, which returns fun facts about marketing segments and products that could lead to marketable insights. DDB also dabbled in the realm of virtual twins with a bot based on its popular marketing leader Les Binet, which the agency showed off at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The bot was trained on work and ideas from Binet’s decades in the industry.

4. AI in any language

AI video platform D-ID released a tool that creates multilingual virtual humans, which the firm expects will help brands and global marketers. “We create digital humans,” said Gil Perry, CEO and co-founder of D-ID, speaking with Ad Age right after last month’s launch. Perry shared a demo of D-ID’s translation service, showing how AI can make it look like the subject in the video speaks up to 29 languages.

This type of AI voiceover work is already finding its way to major platforms. YouTube has released a similar feature that big-time creators including MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, have used to run videos in multiple languages. Enterprise clients, and their chief marketing officers and marketing departments, are the target audiences for D-ID’s app, Perry said.

“At a click of a button, you can create 1,000 videos and then A/B test them and use the most effective video,” Perry said.

D-ID also is experimenting with virtual humans that can live on brands’ websites and talk with visitors.

3. Yes, AI chef

Le Pain Quotidien is using AI to give all its employees access to a virtual version of chef-founder Alain Coumont. The custom chat assistant was dubbed Alain.AI, Ad Age’s Hiken reported, and it uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o. That latest-generation ChatGPT assistant stunned AI enthusiasts earlier this summer because of its lifelike qualities. (One of the voices also had to be removed because it seemed to resemble Scarlett Johansson.)

For Le Pain, the bot gives franchisees around the world an assistant trained on the sensibilities of the founder, and it can help them with menu curation, recipes and ideas. However, the technology comes with a deeper strategy, as Le Pain can use what it’s learning about AI to develop virtual personas of its customers that it will use to enhance its menus and marketing, Hiken reported.

Brands can mine fresh insights from virtual personas and synthetic data, using them as virtual focus groups like they would a real consumer panel.

Le Pain, like most brands, has a deep well of consumer data, from its stores and Tartine Club loyalty program, which it can use to create AI-powered consumer profiles. “Le Pain Quotidien can train Alain.AI on current trends around food and beverages, and then direct the platform to question the personas based on those trends,” Hiken wrote.

2. AI character development

Studio Rx, a production arm of IPG Health, has a new mascot that was brought to life through generative AI. Rxie is a 3D amorphous emoji, which Ad Age’s Hiken noted resembles a Minion. Rxie was a departure for the production studio’s brand, which was more subdued before making the mascot.

The whole exercise was a way to demonstrate the creative potential of generative AI for brands in the agency’s roster, according to Matt Hall, executive creative director of Studio Rx. “We’re using ourselves as a proof case for our clients,” Hall told Hiken.

Studio Rx used the latest version of Adobe Firefly, the AI platform with text-to-image tools, to create Rxie. The design was brought to life after Studio Rx imagined the character in sketches. Adobe Firefly is one of the platforms that has become popular in advertising circles, and other firms, such as Deloitte Digital, have used it to adjust their iconography.

1. Synthetic Sith Lords

AI-generated video has a new entrant called MiniMax, which recently launched out of China, and creators are running it through its paces. Dave Clark, a filmmaker and AI enthusiast who often shares his work on LinkedIn, made a MiniMax video that impressively rendered Darth Vader and Darth Maul. The two evil Sith Lords never dueled in the official Star Wars TV and movie lore, but AI brought the characters together.

The video was a bit cheeky, with lightsaber moves that looked more “Spaceballs” than “Star Wars.” Regardless of the content, and the potential intellectual property ramifications, the new video generator is receiving some high praise. MiniMax is backed by Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, and it competes with OpenAI’s Sora and Runway. Google also has an AI video generator, called Veo.

Clark also recently made a “Toy Story” and “Breaking Bad” crossover animation that popped online. The “Star Wars” parody on X and LinkedIn generated more than 25 million views in 48 hours, according to Clark. “It was the first time I’ve seen the anti AI crowd and AI crowd laughing together,” Clark said on LinkedIn.