As AI becomes increasingly woven into everyday life, Cohere is asking a different question: what should all this technology actually give back to us? Its latest global campaign looks at AI not as an end in itself, but as a tool for creating more space for the things that make life meaningful, from creativity and ambition to relationships and time spent in the world around us.
The campaign film premiered at Kraftwerk during Berlin Art Week, alongside performances from Actress and Sega Bodega. Directed by Charlie Coombes, it was shot on 35mm, with 16mm used for environmental B-roll, bringing a tactile, analogue quality to a project centred on one of the most rapidly evolving technologies of the moment. The campaign brings together Cohere co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez, chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, independent fashion designer Serena Li, and photographer and surfer Jonas Niedermüller.
Here, Cohere’s Joel Evey and Nick Frosst discuss the thinking behind the project, its unconventional casting and why, as technology continues to evolve, keeping people at the centre matters…
What was the starting point for the project, and what did you want it to say about the relationship between people, creativity and technology?
Joel: The starting point was the question, what should technology make possible for us as people? We wanted to explore the idea that technology’s value is in helping us live more fulfilling lives: giving us more freedom to do the things we care about, express our creativity, and spend time in the places we want to be. The campaign brought that to life through four human vignettes, with technology as the enabler. That feels especially relevant right now, when technology and AI are often framed as being in tension with human creativity or the natural world. We wanted to challenge that assumption and imagine a future where people, nature, and technology can exist in harmony: where technology helps us become more present in the world, not more removed from it.
The cast spans very different worlds, from chess and AI to fashion and photography. What were you looking for when putting together the cast, and how did you want their individual personalities and practices to come through?
Joel: I like the idea of building a collective around a brand. We wanted people from genuinely different backgrounds and disciplines involved in the project – some well known, some not. Putting a young fashion designer on the same level as an international chess star says something very clear about our values: what matters is the work, the perspective, and the person, not simply their level of fame. More broadly, we wanted the cast to reflect different slices of life and different ways of creating. Technology can be meaningful to a chess player, a designer, a photographer or an executive. The point wasn’t to suggest there’s one type of person this future belongs to, but almost the opposite: that its value can be deeply personal, regardless of who you are or what you choose to make.
The idea is centred around empowerment, but rather than putting the technology front and centre, you’ve chosen to focus on the people using it. Why was that important to you?
Joel: As AI becomes more powerful and more embedded in everyday life, putting people first becomes even more important. We made this choice because if a technology doesn’t benefit the people using it, why build it in the first place? Riffing on a well known quote from Stafford Beer, “the purpose of the technology is what it does.” We have to purposely ensure that we commit to building these technologies in a pro-human way, and presenting it as such.
Charlie Coombes directed the campaign, and the hero films were shot on 35mm, with 16mm used for some of the environmental B-roll. What was it about Charlie’s approach that made him the right person for the project, and how did film help shape the visual language?
Joel: We worked with Charlie and his DP, Spike, because they had a very clear point of view from the beginning. The grain, the color, the overscan, the 4:3 aspect ratio. None of it was arbitrary. Film felt right for a few reasons. Visually, there’s something incredibly honest about it – the way it holds light, the texture of the grain, the slight imperfections in the image. It gives you something that feels tactile and lived-in rather than overly polished. That mattered for a campaign that was fundamentally about real people and their experiences. The other part is the process. Film changes the energy of a set. When you have limited takes, everyone pays attention. You’re not shooting forty versions so you can make every decision later. You commit, and the commitment ends up in the frame. It also looks like memory, which matters for a film built out of snapshots of personal experience.
There’s something interesting about an AI company choosing such a tactile, analogue way of making the work. Was that contrast between something very new and something very physical part of the idea?
Nick: I like the contrast, because AI can feel very abstract. Its inputs exist in models, data and software, whereas shooting on film is intensely physical. This helped reinforce our view that technology – whether AI or film – is a tool, and its usefulness is only defined by how it supports our experiences. The point of new technology shouldn’t be to erase everything that came before it, but to give people more ways to create, express themselves and spend their time.
What does the combination of the casting, the locations and the analogue production bring to the work that a more conventional tech campaign might not?
Joel: That it’s unexpected, and in today’s content saturated environment, being unexpected is often what is the most memorable. “I wouldn’t have expected this work from an AI company” is exactly the response we wanted, because it means that we broke through the barrier of the “swipe right” generation and actually provoked an emotional response. For me that’s a big proof point of success.
As AI becomes increasingly part of creative and everyday life, what do you hope people take away from the work, beyond the technology itself?
Nick: It increasingly feels like the conversation around AI focuses on the technology itself. We wanted to ask a more human question about what we want this technology to give us more time and space to do. The things that matter most in life are our relationships, creativity, experiences and the places we share. If AI can take care of some of the things that consume our time and attention, it can give us more freedom to focus on these parts of life. For us, that is what responsible AI should enable.
