By Kimeko McCoy • June 16, 2026 •
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The marketing industry’s obsession has moved from finding the right spokesperson to cloning them.
Brands’ growing appetite for more content at a fraction of the costs has led to the emergence of digital twins — AI-powered replicas of a person’s likeness, voice, and even thought patterns. Take Coca-Cola’s latest campaign for the FIFA World Cup featuring an AI-generated professional football manager, José Mourinho, debating himself. Whether audiences will accept these twins, however, is still up for debate.
“We get closer and closer to the uncanny valley every single day,” said Kimeko McCoy, Digiday senior marketing reporter, the author of this story, on a recent episode of the Digiday Podcast.
