To announce its entrance into 5G home internet service, Mint Mobile found the real-life version of a new AI-generated actress, even if only in (nick)name.
Tilly Norwood is the name of a so-called AI actress launched by AI talent studio Xicoia. It also happens to be the name of a woman who stars alongside Ryan Reynolds in Mint Mobile’s new ad for its home internet service, which it’s branding “Minternet.”
“It’s hard to believe that Mint is launching 5G home internet. It’s also hard to believe that a real version of an AI actress is out there,” a Maximum Effort representative tells Fast Company. “And thanks to the incredible and somewhat disturbing stalking detective abilities of our team, we found her. Just outside of Dallas, Texas, just one day before filming the commercial. Luckily she responded to our random DMs and was happy to assure the world that both she and the internet are very real.”
The fake Norwood has inspired backlash and a Wikipedia page, and the labor union SAG-AFTRA refused to say in a statement that the AI character is an actual actor, instead stating it’s “a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers—without permission or compensation.”
As it happens, the real Norwood—Natalie “Tilly” Norwood—is a real Mint Mobile customer.
In the commercial, Reynolds, a former Mint Mobile co-owner who still makes ads for the wireless service provider through Maximum Effort, a production company he cofounded, asks if Norwood is real and “not an AI-generated combination of actors.”
“I’m a combination of my parents,” the real Norwood says.
Mint Mobile’s parent company was acquired by T-Mobile in 2023 in a deal worth up to $1.35 billion, and its 5G home internet service shows the brand is broadening its ambitions beyond mobile. The brand says its home internet service will use T-Mobile’s 5G network, and Mint Mobile is offering it for as low as $30 a month for customers with a Mint Mobile phone plan who prepay for three months.
In an advertising landscape that could increasingly see more AI-generated ads, sticking to real people is a smart strategy. A 2024 YouGov poll of respondents from 17 markets around the world found 51% were uncomfortable with a brand creating a virtual ambassador (34% were comfortable with it; 15% didn’t know how they felt about it).
In other words, using a fake Tilly Norwood in your ad could turn away half your audience. Meanwhile, the real living, breathing Tilly Norwood appears to be anything but polarizing.