Coca-Cola did not have an AI problem.It had a diagnosis problem.

In November 2025 Coca-Cola released a fully AI-generated version of its “Holidays Are Coming” film as part of its “Givers of the Season” holiday campaign, produced with the studio Silverside AI. The company framed the work as embracing AI-powered storytelling. It followed a similarly AI-made 2024 holiday spot, and, like that one, drew widespread public criticism across press and social platforms.

Most of the debate sorted itself into two camps: for AI or against it. That framing is comfortable, and it is beside the point. The technology worked. Trucks arrived, snow fell, the logo glowed. Judged as production, it was fast, scalable and cheap.

A brand can execute a brief flawlessly and still be solving the wrong problem. That is what makes this a useful diagnosis rather than a culture-war story.

The Christmas platform does not exist to demonstrate what is now possible to produce. Its job is emotional continuity: to feel like the same warmth people have chosen to return to for decades. Optimising that platform for production efficiency answers a question the season never asked.

The failure, then, is not the tool. It is diagnostic. When speed, scale and cost become the brief, the output can be efficient and still miss the one thing the asset was supposed to protect.

Technology is only ever as good as the question it is pointed at. Before reaching for a more efficient way to make the film, the more valuable move is to be sure the film is still answering what the audience actually comes for.