Luxury fitness brand Equinox has unveiled its 2026 global brand effort, “Question everything but yourself”, created in partnership with creative agency Angry Gods. The campaign uses fully AI-generated visuals juxtaposed against real photographs to reflect a cultural moment in which digital imagery can no longer be taken at face value. The campaign also positions healthy bodies, and the effort behind achieving fitness goals, as something real and trustworthy in an increasingly synthetic world.
The rollout began on 1 January on Equinox’s Instagram with a series of surreal, AI-generated videos. The first featured a man celebrating a New Year’s countdown before transforming into an elderly woman covered in blood, who then morphed into a cake. The video was captioned: “Happy new year we are not ok.”
On 2 January, the brand shared a video of two toddlers waterskiing while adorned in gold jewelry and sunglasses, alongside the line, “The next generation does not ease in. Take note.”
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Later that day, a runway-style video showed models in absurd costumes, including a cigarette dress and a hotdog outfit, declaring: “The era of restraint is over”. Each video ended with the phrase “Question everything”.
On 3 January, Equinox released a compilation of follower comments from previous posts, highlighting confusion and speculation, with some users asking whether the account had been hacked. The post teased a reveal scheduled for 5 January.
That reveal arrived as a montage of exaggerated AI-generated clips, including depictions of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dancing and former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau performing provocatively in heels. The montage concluded with a woman in athletic wear and the words “Question everything but yourself”. The post’s caption framed the campaign as a reflection on the erosion of truth in digital culture, emphasising that the human body remains “the last remaining ledger that cannot be photoshopped at scale”.
According to Equinox, the creative draws directly from public AI memes and internet culture, intentionally including imagery that may feel provocative or uncomfortable to reflect the volume and intensity of artificial content encountered daily online.
Gabe Miller, executive creative director, Angry Gods, said, “A campaign that accurately reflects today’s AI trends and memes has to include things not everyone will like. If we had held back, the campaign would not feel credible.”
The project was designed to address a perceived problem in luxury and lifestyle marketing, where imagery has become increasingly uniform and disconnected from real life. True to Equinox’s long-standing approach, the work avoids showing people working out, instead portraying individuals in elevated lifestyle moments to reinforce that what members achieve in the club shows up in how they live outside of it.
AI was central both to the campaign’s execution and its meaning, enabling rapid iteration on visuals while reflecting broader shifts in media consumption. According to the agency, research indicates that 70% of people now struggle to discern trustworthy information, and up to 52% of Instagram and TikTok content is estimated to be AI-generated, potentially reaching 90% by 2026.
Reaction online has been divided, according to comments seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE. Some praised Equinox for tackling themes of AI and authenticity head-on, while others called the campaign “anticlimactic” or felt it “missed the mark”. Several users even speculated that the manifesto text itself was AI-generated.
The campaign also reflects a growing trend of brands experimenting with AI-driven, provocative content, a move that can both capture attention and court controversy. Last December, McDonald’s Netherlands attempted a similarly bold approach with an AI-powered Christmas advert. Reimagining the classic It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year as “The most terrible time of the year”, the 45-second spot leaned into holiday chaos, mixing humour, hyper-real visuals, and generative AI.
Produced by TBWANEBOKO alongside US production company The Sweetshop and an international team of AI specialists, the ad drew sharp online backlash over its uncanny visuals and AI-generated characters, leading the brand to remove the video shortly after release. McDonald’s framed the incident as a learning moment in exploring AI for marketing, underscoring both the creative potential and risks of such experiments.
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