Lexus: AI Emotional Journey

The background

Lexus wanted to communicate that their new ES Self-Charging Hybrid model is designed to make you feel your best. So we created the world’s first emotion-driven video experience that responds to how you feel in real-time — inspired by the car that does the same.

The execution

The Lexus ES AI Emotional Journey is an experiential film experience dynamically generated based on your current emotional state. Using AI sentiment analysis, we crafted personalised videos in real-time that mirror the viewer’s feelings, with live data visualisation corresponding to changes. As well as responding to the relevant emotions, the AI also aims to drive the viewer towards feeling more relaxed by the end of the film.

We used MorphCast’s software development kit to read and translate facial expressions. The sophisticated technology detected faces and used a CNN (Deep Convolutional Neural Network) approach to analyse factors like emotion, age, gender, and head pose. Once it determined your current mood — stressed, surprised, relaxed, puzzled, or happy — it adjusted the colours, videos, sounds, and animated graphic elements accordingly to match.

The experience generated a shareable, unique video tailor-made to the viewer’s feelings throughout the journey — and a visual recap of how your emotions guided them. Once the video finished, users could navigate a timeline showing all the emotions that were recorded throughout the data visualisation.

The results

The experimental film experience is unlike anything that’s been done before. It was exciting to explore AI technology in new ways and really push the limits of what’s possible.

This was not technology for technology’s sake; it was an opportunity for Lexus to demonstrate its commitment to intelligent technology in an innovative, user-centric way, and to connect with their audience on a deeper, more personal level.