Google's "The Small Brief" hired Susan Credle, Tiffany Rolfe and Jayanta Jenkins to make AI-generated spots for small businesses, then filmed the work. Credle made a film for Stonewood Farm in Millbrook, New York; Rolfe for South Ferry Company on Long Island; Jenkins for ARCHANGELS, which supports caregivers. None of the three had made an AI spot from scratch before. Ads and behind-the-scenes mini-docs unveiled 19 August 2026.
Tools were Google Flow and Gemini. Google chose small businesses because a large-brand AI spot can read as replacing a live shoot; these clients would not have had that budget anyway. Jenkins generated the bulk of his film over a weekend, roughly eight hours across two days, with at least 300 iterations in his Flow folder. Rolfe leaned on historical photographs AI could up-res, then added a verification layer when the model invented history. All three tied industry hostility to AI slop made without an idea.
