9 Brands That Doubled Down On AI in 2025

In 2025, generative AI was not a nice-to-have for manufacturers; it grew to become an important instrument of their enterprise and advertising and marketing infrastructure.Some folded the tech into their adtech and media stacks, whereas others used it as a inventive engine, leaning on it to breathe new life into previous campaigns. One firm even rode the AI advertising and marketing momentum all the best way to a blockbuster IPO. A number of signed offers with main gamers, together with OpenAI.Alongside the best way, these firms have been pressured to confront uncomfortable questions in regards to the human price of going all-in on automation. Many responded with acquainted reassurances: that the instruments would remodel the work people do, not eradicate it.From Coca-Cola to Klarna, ADWEEK displays on seven manufacturers that turned AI innovation into tangible ends in 2025.Unilever’s AI twins reduce costsIn March, Unilever’s (quickly to depart) chief progress and advertising and marketing officer Esi Eggleston Bracey revealed that the corporate was integrating AI in its product shoots, saving money and time within the course of. The CPG large has been experimenting with NVIDIA’s Omniverse tech on manufacturers together with Dove, Vaseline, and TRESemmé.The instrument lets Unilever produce “digital twins,” or digital replicas of its merchandise. Every digital twin accommodates the entire product’s variants, labels, packaging, and language codecs inside a single file.It additionally permits the corporate to shortly insert AI-generated product photos into messaging on TV and e-commerce, eradicating duplication to make the picture manufacturing course of twice as quick and half as costly.After a couple of months of experimentation, Unilever stated on the finish of Q1 that the tech had diminished content material creation prices for TRESemmé Thailand by 87%, whereas producing content material twice as quick and rising buy intent by 5%.Throughout the board, Unilever is utilizing greater than 500 AI functions throughout its enterprise, a part of its Progress Motion Plan 2030, designed to drive progress throughout its “superior manufacturers” like Dove, Vaseline, Axe, and Hellmann’s. – Rebecca StewartMattel laid the groundwork for an AI future Mattel spent 2025 laying the groundwork for an AI-assisted future throughout its largest franchises. The corporate behind Sizzling Wheels and Barbie signed a wide-ranging cope with OpenAI, giving it entry to the corporate’s latest fashions and instruments, together with ChatGPT Enterprise. The transfer is a part of the toy large’s broader push to make use of generative AI as a pressure multiplier throughout design and storytelling. Mattel executives have framed the OpenAI partnership as a approach to unlock new sorts of play and rethink how the corporate develops toys, media, and client merchandise. “Every of our merchandise and experiences is designed to encourage followers, entertain audiences, and enrich lives by play. AI has the facility to develop on that mission and broaden the attain of our manufacturers in new and thrilling methods,” Josh Silverman, chief franchise officer at Mattel, stated in a press release. Whereas the primary product rising from the OpenAI collaboration is anticipated later this yr, Mattel hasn’t shared particulars past what it disclosed in a June weblog submit.The corporate’s guess alerts how legacy toy makers are leaning on AI to remain culturally related and transfer quicker in a market the place IP-driven franchises now compete with tech-powered leisure. – Trishla Ostwal Duolingo’s AI-first technique prompted debateIn April, Duolingo unveiled an “AI-first” technique shift that put machine studying on the heart of how the language-learning app builds merchandise, content material, and advertisements. One in every of its flagship debuts was Lily, an AI agent that helps customers observe conversational abilities by video calls. AI has additionally accelerated content material manufacturing for the model. In early 2025, Duolingo revealed the tech had delivered 7,500 items of content material in 2024, up from simply 425 in 2021.Duolingo’s AI pivot didn’t land quietly. After CEO Luis von Ahn stated in a Might memo that new hires would solely be authorised if managers may show AI couldn’t do the job, it prompted hypothesis about layoffs and a backlash on LinkedIn. Some customers threatened to cancel paid subscriptions, arguing that AI-generated classes risked eroding belief within the platform. “If I needed AI-generated language studying content material, I’d go ask ChatGPT,” one commenter wrote on von Ahn’s LinkedIn announcement. By September, Duolingo confirmed its AI investments hadn’t led to any full-time staff being laid off. As an alternative, AI is boosting human productiveness, von Ahn stated at Quick Firm’s Innovation Competition. Past content material, Duolingo additionally introduced its advert tech stack in-house with Duolingo Advertisements, giving manufacturers tighter entry to its characters and roughly 50 million each day customers, ADWEEK beforehand reported. Duolingo was unavailable for remark on the time of publication. – Trishla OstwalKlarna rode the AI wave to its IPOIn 2025, AI moved past a “social gathering trick” for Klarna, its CMO David Sandstrom instructed ADWEEK. The tech now runs by advertising and marketing, operations, and buyer help—serving to the buy-now-pay-later agency generate roughly $1 million in income per worker.The fintech agency made its IPO debut in September at almost a $20 billion valuation and has constructed a U.S. buyer base of 111 million throughout roughly 790,000 retailers. Over the 12 months ending June 30, Klarna dealt with $112 billion in transactions. AI has helped reduce prices: advertising and marketing spend fell 12% whereas company reliance dropped, and AI-driven content material manufacturing boosted asset output by 600%.Its AI assistant now performs duties equal to 800 full-time brokers, liberating staff for higher-value work and letting the corporate reinvest a $10 million “effectivity dividend” into progress and model initiatives, an organization spokesperson instructed ADWEEK. Seeking to 2026, Klarna plans to scale AI additional to automate repetitive duties whereas maintaining people central to complicated interactions, and develop advertising and marketing throughout 26 markets and greater than 35 languages, the spokesperson added. – Trishla Ostwal CaliBBQ cooked up a inventive case for AIShawn AI dealt with roughly 150 buyer calls, from catering inquiries to reservations and orders. On Father’s Day, California barbecue chain CaliBBQ made a inventive case for AI when it switched its ordinary cellphone operators for an AI agent named Shawn. The model educated an LLM to sound like proprietor Shawn Walchef. Powered by AI startup Palona, the agent dealt with roughly 150 calls and helped drive an 18% gross sales enhance over 2024, hitting about $26,000 throughout 268 orders. Stroll-in takeout orders jumped 92% year-over-year.Earlier metrics from Thanksgiving this yr confirmed comparable good points: internet gross sales rose 7% to $10,444, voided orders dropped 45%, and cellphone orders dealt with by the AI elevated 17%, based on information shared by the chain.Seeking to 2026, CaliBBQ plans to develop AI help for catering and discover Palona Imaginative and prescient, a multimodal system that mixes imaginative and prescient, voice, textual content, and information right into a single “mind,” the model instructed ADWEEK. The know-how can reply calls, flag lengthy strains, or automate catering orders, all from one AI system. The purpose is to take care of operational consistency throughout each front- and back-of-house whereas maintaining employees centered on serving friends. – Trishla Ostwal Normal Motors popped the hood on the tech115-year-old Normal Motors popped the hood on its AI advertising and marketing transformation in 2025.That shift was led by chief transformation officer, Molly Peck, and powered by Metropolis, GM’s in-house AI platform educated by itself manufacturers, merchandise, and tone.The instrument was in-built partnership with S4’s Monks, which helped develop a brand-compliant database that GM’s workforce may question to shortly generate and supply photos and video to fulfill a rising and voracious demand for on-line content material.Via a self-service portal, GM’s advertising and marketing groups can immediate Metropolis to “produce excessive decision, contextually exact photos in each nonetheless and in video…within the matter of moments,” Deborah Heslip, international chief consumer officer at Monks, instructed ADWEEK in October. GM pressured its embrace of AI doesn’t come on the expense of human creativity. As a part of its 2024 revamp, it employed 72andSunny and Anomaly as inventive AORs on Cadillac and Chevrolet, respectively. These businesses present model technique and platforms which can be then scaled utilizing AI. – Rebecca StewartIntuit grew to become AI-first from the within outIntuit is embedding AI deeply into its advertising and marketing perform.Within the fall, Intuit’s advertising and marketing boss Thomas Ranese instructed ADWEEK that 83% of its 18,200 staff now use AI at work, marking a 60% soar in adoption over the previous 9 months. The TurboTax proprietor’s advertising and marketing workforce is doubling down on generative AI, powered by a brand new proprietary instrument referred to as Advertising and marketing Studio, which might create a whole marketing campaign–from transient to inventive to CRM technique–in beneath an hour. Work developed by Advertising and marketing Studio has already boosted conversions by about 10%. Elsewhere, gen AI has reduce content material planning time by 90% for Intuit’s search groups by figuring out key phrase gaps. It’s additionally serving to Intuit’s social efficiency workforce drive a 38% elevate in click-through charges. “We’re at a tipping level culturally now for the tech,” former Google and Uber exec Ranese instructed ADWEEK in October. “Now we’re transferring quick to determine how we embed it.”In July 2024, earlier than Ranese joined as CMO, Intuit laid off round 10% of its workforce, or 1,800 staff, to open up budgets for gen AI tasks. Nonetheless, it pledged to rent one other 1,800 individuals in engineering, product, and customer-facing roles comparable to gross sales and advertising and marketing. – Rebecca StewartCoca-Cola gave its AI vehicles one other whirlCoca-Cola’s polar bears is perhaps considering an AI futureIn December, Coca-Cola once more rang within the holidays with an AI-powered tackle one among promoting’s most enduring seasonal traditions. Created by WPP Open X, led by VML, and supported by EssenceMediacom, Ogilvy, and Burson, “Refresh Your Holidays” blended machine studying and human craft to reimagine the soda large’s three-decade-old “The Holidays Are Coming” method.The advert incorporates a hyper-real aesthetic constructed from over 70,000 video clips, giving the movie a cinematic sheen that merges human craft with machine functionality.Coca-Cola’s vacation work has not been with out controversy. 2024’s AI-powered marketing campaign drew debate contained in the business and past. Regardless of this, the enterprise leaned even additional into the tech in 2025. Pratik Thakar, The Coca-Cola Firm’s international vp and head of generative AI, stated analysis agency Kantar ranked Coca-Cola’s AI advert because the top-performing Christmas marketing campaign globally final yr throughout all classes—a outcome that inspired the corporate to proceed experimenting with generative instruments.Coca-Cola can be toying with AI by greater than a dozen incubators with main tech firms, gaining early entry to fashions to check how the know-how can drive creativity and effectivity, Thakar stated. Past advertising and marketing, this contains making use of AI to analysis and improvement, provide chain, and information administration—however with out making a separate AI division. – Rebecca StewartDisney signed a $1 billion cope with OpenAIDisney+ erases its historical past in Tremendous Bowl spot.Disney introduced in December that it’s going to purchase a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and license its characters for Sora, the corporate’s short-form video platform launched in September.As a part of the three-year deal, some movies made with Sora will seem on Disney+, the businesses stated. Sora and ChatGPT Pictures are set to begin producing fan-inspired movies that includes Disney’s licensed characters in early 2026. Disney stated it should additionally workforce up with OpenAI to create “new merchandise, instruments, and experiences” and “deploy” ChatGPT into its workforce.The primary large AI deal out of Hollywood stops wanting utilizing actors’ voices or likenesses—central factors of ire within the current actors and writers strikes—however alerts that studios could also be shifting from blocking AI startups to partnering with them. Disney CEO Bob Iger framed the transfer as a cautious embrace of the know-how. “The speedy development of synthetic intelligence marks an vital second for our business, and thru this collaboration with OpenAI, we are going to thoughtfully and responsibly prolong the attain of our storytelling,” he stated in a press release. –Trishla Ostwal