Restaurants, cafes, and brands are increasingly using AI to create advertising images of food. The Verge AI describes a series of strange results from this practice—ranging from shrimp shaped like donuts and 'underwater' sandwiches to worm-like noodles and thread-like chicken.
The selection also mentions images where construction material resembles ice cream, ice cream resembles a brain, and a burger and burrito look particularly grotesque. The material shows not an isolated error but a recurring visual motif in the advertising content described by the publication.
For brands, this is important because food imagery is directly linked to expectations of taste, quality, and safety. However, the available package contains only a synopsis of the publication, so it is not possible to determine with certainty why such forms arise or how widespread the phenomenon is beyond the examples provided.
editorial commentary
Why it matters
A likely consequence is increased attention to human verification of food advertising images before publication. The next observable signal will be the emergence of more detailed analyses of the causes and scale of such distortions. Significant uncertainty remains: only a synopsis of one publication is available, without data on specific tools, campaigns, or error frequencies.