Mindy Tucker and Sam Cashell
- Fake AI startup ads, created by two comedians, appeared briefly in NYC subway stations this week.
- A video they posted of the parody campaign generated millions of views across social media.
- The duo learned that one made-up startup's name belongs to a real AI company.
"What if forks were spoons? Cutlery.ai"
Those words appeared on an otherwise blank poster that was briefly pinned to the wall of a New York subway station this week. While its simple style resembled many other nearby ads for AI startups, there was one key difference: Cutlery.ai isn't real — and that's the point.
"It's so obviously nonsense, but it also does sort of feel like what a lot of these companies are saying to you," Dave Ross, one of two New York comedians behind the phony ads, told Business Insider. The other is Harris Alterman, and together they made and hung nine other posters like it throughout Manhattan's underground.
"1 +1 = ____. Dennis can tell you," reads another.
A video showcasing their shenanigans has since gone viral, racking up more than 3 million views across Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
"I take the subway all the time, and I'm constantly inundated with AI ads and tech company ads that make no sense to me," said Alterman.
Since Alterman makes parody content for a living, he said spoofing them felt like a natural move. He recruited Ross, a friend with a knack for turning comedy ideas into real-world objects, to help create the posters.
Harris Alterman and Dave Ross
The duo has since learned that at least one of the fictional startups in their ads — Wireflow — is the name of a real AI company, which appears below a made-up slogan that reads: "You pay us, we pay you."
A spokesperson for Wireflow, whose website says it's based in Australia, didn't immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.
"We were so on the money that it happened to be a real thing," said Alterman.
The effort cost about $200, he and Ross said, and, due to their popularity, the comics have tried to monetize their creativity with T-shirts featuring the ads. They said they took the posters down immediately after filming the viral video showcasing them because they expected MTA officials to remove them. Eventually, they got caught red-handed.
"At one point during filming, they were like, 'hey, what the hell are you guys doing?' " said Alterman.
Both men said they have experience working in tech. Alterman, 34, was once a social-media director, while Ross, 43, spent several years as a web developer.
The success of the stunt has convinced the pair that more material may be lurking in New York's subway stations.
"This is a pretty deep well of comedy," Alterman said. "We could probably make a lot more of these."
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