• by Tanya Gazdik , Yesterday

Fi, a leader in smart pet technology, is launching creative that uses Claude, Kling and VEO AI for photorealistic dogs, down to specific breed markings and gaits. 

The Fi Ultra is the first-ever wearable powered by T-Satellite with Starlink. The technology allows owners to track their dog's location anywhere in the U.S., including deep off-grid.

A high-tech product calls for an equally tech-forward creative. The campaign “uses strict, AI photorealism instead of hallucinatory, AI slop,” according to a spokesperson. It includes an AI rendition of Fi founder Jonathan Bensamoun's dog Thor, who stars in the spots.

“Unleash the Wild” is running across digital, social and TV. It was created by Dolsten & Co., an AI-first creative studio led by Simon Dolsten.

“While every AI film I’ve seen is trying to prove the tech works, we were trying to prove how real the dogs feel because we know that dog owners know exactly how their dog moves, jumps, how it turns its head and so on, so we couldn’t fake that,” Dolstein says. “That’s why we wanted to work with the animal behaviorists to make sure each dog shown was as accurate as possible to their breed.”

Fi Ultra is the brand’s “biggest swing yet,” says Ryan Adair, Fi head of brand.

"It’s one of a kind, so it couldn't lean on the everyday storytelling that anchors our other products; it needed its own world,” Adair says. “It was essential that we drew inspiration from real dogs to illustrate the power of this innovative new product, while ensuring the campaign remained grounded in the heart of real animals.”

Fi recently hired a new CMO, Karina Kogan, who was the former top marketer at some other tech-forward brands: Oura, Peloton and Infinite Reality.

The campaign marks “the first time images of real dogs (and our members) have been developed into a photoreal film at this level,” Kogan wrote in a  post on LinkedIn. "A few years ago, work like this would have been unimaginable, especially for an indie brand with an indie budget.”

By partnering with an AI-first studio, Fi was able to bypass physical production constraints and achieve high-end filmmaking through innovative AI artistry, she says. 

While most AI filmmaking invents what isn't there, Fi and Dolsten & Co. used it to do something harder: extend reality. Viewers are transported across some of North America's most uncharted territory. 

The film closes on Fi Callback, a training system built specifically for Fi Ultra that uses only sound and vibration, never static or electric shock, as owners call their off-leash dogs back across those sweeping open landscapes.