Coca-Cola is reintroducing its holiday commercials using generative AI, despite facing criticism over last year's ads that featured awkward animations and unrealistic human depictions. The new campaign, part of the “Holidays Are Coming” series, shifts focus from human characters to various animals like polar bears, pandas, and sloths. However, the execution is inconsistent, bouncing between realistic and cartoonish styles, leading to unnatural movements that resemble poorly animated images rather than polished 3D graphics. Compared to advanced deepfake technology from companies like OpenAI and Google, Coca-Cola's latest effort appears outdated. The Wall Street Journal reports that Coca-Cola collaborated with AI studios Silverside and Secret Level for this campaign, employing around 100 people, including five AI specialists. These specialists were responsible for refining over 70,000 AI-generated video clips. While Coca-Cola hasn't disclosed the campaign's budget, the company claims that using AI made production cheaper and faster, allowing them to complete projects in about a month instead of the previous year-long process. The Chief Marketing Officer, Manolo Arroyo, highlighted this efficiency in production as a key benefit of embracing AI. Coca-Cola's commitment to AI in advertising comes despite previous missteps, including an incident where they created a fake book attributed to author J.G. Ballard. Other companies, like Google, are similarly venturing into fully AI-generated commercials, suggesting a broader trend in the industry. While some creatives worry about job security as AI tools become more capable, Coca-Cola seems willing to take risks with its brand identity in pursuit of quicker and cheaper ad production.