Stories
Greta Garbo Revived by AI for SKF's Frictionless Technology Campaign
- •Swedish industrial company SKF has digitally recreated Hollywood icon Greta Garbo using AI for a new campaign promoting its magnetic bearing technology.
- •The campaign highlights SKF's magnetic bearings, which eliminate physical contact and friction, and revives a 1919 financing model allowing customers to fund technology through energy savings.
- •AI recreation of Garbo involved ByteDance's Seedream 5 Pro and Google's Gemini Nano Banana Pro for image generation, and Seedance 2, Seedance 2.5, and Kuaishou's Kling AI for motion.
- •Garbo's voice was recreated using audio from an early film with permission, and a human actor helped reproduce her speech timing and cadence.
- •The campaign, developed with Garbo's family, has received mixed reactions, with some critics calling the digital recreation a ‘synthetic resurrection’.
Key Questions Answered
SKF recreated Greta Garbo using AI image generation tools including ByteDance's Seedream 5 Pro and Google's Gemini Nano Banana Pro, while motion was handled by Seedance 2, Seedance 2.5, and Kling AI. Her voice was recreated using permitted audio from an early film alongside a human actor who helped match her speech cadence.
SKF's magnetic bearing technology is designed to eliminate physical contact between moving components in order to completely remove friction in industrial processes. The technology is used in energy-intensive operations such as data centres, cooling systems, and semiconductor applications to help reduce global energy consumption.
SKF is reviving a financing approach it first introduced in 1919 that allows customers to fund new technology investments through the energy savings generated over time. The company plans to apply this principle to make its latest energy-efficient solutions more accessible to industrial customers.
