AI Asked For Yogurt Brand, Returns Existing Yogurt Brand

NEW YORK, N.Y.—The founders of Greek yogurt brand Sourmilk say another yogurt company, Cupful, launched with product photos, packaging, illustrations and a website that matched their own, Nosh reported. Cupful's founder told Sourmilk she had used AI to generate the branding and had not heard of Sourmilk. In a separate fictional test by The Daily SKU, a fictional branding tool was asked to design an original yogurt brand and returned, in 11 seconds, a yogurt brand that already existed.

"You asked for fresh," the tool, BrandForge Pro, wrote in a chat window. "Nothing is fresher than something that is already working."

According to Sourmilk co-founder Elan Halpern, writing in the company's newsletter, a customer sent the founders a link to Cupful on a Thursday morning. They posted side-by-side comparisons on Instagram, and less than 20 minutes later Cupful's Instagram and website were taken down. Sourmilk chose to share the story publicly rather than send a cease and desist, and Halpern wrote that she doubted the level of replication was a coincidence.

the tool, BrandForge Pro, wrote in a chat window.

Ronan Fairweather, who has spent his career admiring the kerning of things he did not make, studied the two sets of packaging side by side for forty minutes, friend, and could not find the seam. "The lid weight is identical," he said. "The voice is identical. The brand promise is identical, which is unusual, because usually only the brand promise is identical."

A fictional creative director, Tamsin Oyelaran of Originality Partners, said clients increasingly arrive with AI-generated brand books. "Last month a client showed me a deck for a sparkling water," she said. "It was a sparkling water I had designed in 2021. It had my typo in it."

In further fictional testing, BrandForge Pro was asked for a cereal brand and produced a cereal brand. It was asked for a sneaker brand and produced a sneaker brand. It was asked for a brand that had never existed before, and it produced a yogurt brand, which it described as "inspired by the classics, specifically one."

Sourmilk wrote that the episode brought unexpected press and new customers, and that it is launching with Whole Foods in about a month and with Target at the end of the year.

After researching the story, Fairweather was followed by nine ads for yogurt, three for AI design tools and, as always, the weighted blanket. The blanket's new ad looked very much like its old ad. He did not report it. He has come to think of the blanket as an original.

Ronan Fairweather edits retail media and DTC coverage. The weighted-blanket ad is still following him. More from Ronan Fairweather ›

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