At the start of August, Google’s AI research lab DeepMind, announced the launch of Genie 3 – an AI model that can create 3D environments at 720p resolution from text prompts. Genie 3’s realistic environments can stay physically consistent over time, and lets users navigate ‘worlds’ that can be generated and altered in real-time.
Google said the model is likely to be used for gaming, robotics, training, disaster preparedness, education, and even to train artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a not yet achieved AI that’s as, or more, intelligent than humans. To shed light on Genie 3’s impact on the industry, and potential use cases that go beyond gaming and disaster simulations, are eight marketing leaders.
Sam Fenton-Elstone, CEO and Co-founder, Anything is Possible
“Who had ‘worlding’ down as an essential marketing skill for 2026? If Genie 3 fulfils its promise, worldbuilding and brand building now go hand in hand. This changes the creative brief from ‘tell me a story’ to ‘architect a space for my stories to happen’, demanding new fluencies in spatial design, interactive narrative and behavioural analytics. Adland will need to think like urban planners, evolving environments towards real-time feedback. So are we all gamers now? It might not be as simple as ‘let a million Fortnites bloom’. Your brandworld will need to deliver personalised, authentic experiences that optimise to time on-platform. Some may decide that risk, and the effort cutting through the attention threshold when these spaces are ubiquitous, is too much and return to spaces their customers already are. We can learn from the Metaverse scenario: just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.”
Marcus Wendt, Founder & CEO, FIELD
“Google’s Genie 3 marks a shift on par with the leap from studio-made films to the user-generated video that transformed platforms like YouTube. It removes friction from world-building to generate playable, interactive 3D environments in minutes from a single prompt; an ‘I’ve not seen that before’ moment for many. For marketing, the implications are immediate. Entire interactive environments can be conceived, iterated and tested in real time, replacing months of production with rapid cycles of creative experimentation. Campaigns could evolve into adaptive worlds that audiences explore and influence, allowing for unprecedented levels of engagement and personalisation. Years of building intelligent spaces and narrative systems mean the leap from concept to living, evolving brand worlds is a natural one. This shift moves marketing beyond fixed narratives to experiences that branch, adapt, and respond. While there are current limitations in resolution and scalability, the potential is clear: future campaigns may feel less like ads and more like worlds.”
Ben Gibson, UK CEO, Labelium
“Genie 3 is exciting. Generating immersive, interactive worlds from simple prompts could cut costs and increase how often such worlds are used. While most applications are in AI (expanding model training) and gaming (letting players create their own worlds), there are huge possibilities for marketing and advertising. Brands could create experiences where users explore a luxury hotel before stepping into Paris, attend the Venice Film Festival with products woven in, or drive a car anywhere in the world. Lower costs mean these could be updated regularly for events, launches or trends. Limitations remain: short scene duration, restricted area size, limited agent interaction, and memory lasting about a minute – so in the car example, you may turn the car around and the road behind may have vanished. For brands currently this means they would need to risk giving up some control within the experience, and it potentially going awry, so it will not suit all. Still, the most transformative use may be the least glamorous: generating endless data to train AI towards AGI.”
Jules Brim, Marketing Consultant, Marketing Mixology
“Google’s new Genie 3 is making waves as a huge leap in GenAI, by creating high-quality, dynamic content from minimal input. For marketers, it’s a potential game-changer, offering speed, scale, and personalisation like never before. Right now, it’s being trialled for rapid ad creative generation, concept testing, and social content. Feed it your campaign themes and key messages, and you could have tailored assets for every audience and platform the same day, saving hours of meetings and avoiding the dreaded ‘client hates your concepts’ moment. It’s exciting, yes it’s always exciting seeing how things evolve, but I believe true creativity comes from deeply understanding people, their quirks, needs, and motivations. That’s why AI should start the process, but a human should always finish it.”
Chris Camacho, CEO, Cheil UK
“Genie 3 isn’t just impressive, it’s a glitch in the matrix moment. We’re witnessing the birth of a new creative paradigm where photorealistic, interactive worlds can be spun up from text alone. That doesn’t just shift the dial for marketers, it rips the dial out and replaces it with something entirely new. In the short term, we’ll see a surge in immersive product demos, AI-generated campaigns and adaptive storytelling. But longer term, Genie 3 points to the collapse of production boundaries altogether. Why storyboard when you can simulate? Why test in market when you can pressure test in AI-built reality? It’s exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Exciting because it expands the creative canvas like never before. Terrifying because most brands are still clinging to old playbooks. Tools like Genie 3 won’t replace creative talent, just like a performance car is only as powerful as the driver behind the wheel. In this new era, the edge belongs to the brands and agencies who know how to harness the machine, not fear it.”
Patrick Briggs, CEO, Semify
“What’s exciting about Genie 3 for digital marketing is the ‘promptable world events.’ I see a clear opportunity where a game designer that uses Genie 3 to design a game has an advertising platform sitting alongside the world engine. The platform monitors user behaviour for advertising signals, auctions them in a bid marketplace (similar to Adwords), and then real-time generates the product or service placement in the AI world based on the advertiser that wins the auction (just like PPC). The game designer gets a commission and Google has a new ads marketplace. I don’t find this exciting or scary, it is inevitable. Consumers want better targeted experiences and advertisers want to provide them. There is a worthy debate on attaining the data and who owns the data, but we can all agree that we (as consumers) want better personalised ads.”
Jason Warner, Managing Director UK & EMEA, SBS
“Genie 3 is mind-blowing because it strips away the barriers between creative vision and immersive execution. Our research found that 71 percent of independent agencies face challenges accessing and adopting new technology, often due to budget, resource and training constraints. Tools like Genie 3 could be the great equaliser, providing smaller, agile agencies with the ability to produce interactive, photorealistic worlds without the traditional overhead. While today’s use cases lean towards AI training and simulation, the marketing potential is huge: from real-time virtual brand activations to fully explorable campaign environments. This is not just content, it is a customer experience you can step into. That is exciting, but our data is also a reminder that tech alone is not enough. Without collaboration, shared access and the right guardrails, innovations like Genie 3 risk widening the gap between those who can afford to experiment and those left behind. The opportunity is massive if we ensure it is shared.”
Calvin Innes, GM & ECD, Jung von Matt NERD London
“Genie 3 is the first time it’s actually felt like we’re stepping into these AI-generated 3D worlds, not just watching them happen. They react, they evolve, they remember you. It’s actually wild to think about. ‘Game changing’ gets thrown around way too much in regards to AI, but this one? It earns it. Being able to build an immersive brand experience or an entire training sim from a short prompt? That would’ve sounded ridiculous not long ago. Now it’s here, and honestly, we’re either completely amazed or totally numb to it all, depending on how burned out you are from the non-stop AI hype. Still, the pace Genie 3 is moving at is… unsettling in the best way. Right now the potential for fast prototyping and storytelling is crazy. But give it a minute, and it’s going to get even more impressive. It’s already common knowledge that this stuff’s going to change how we do marketing, retail, fan worlds… all of it. It’s exciting, as a tool and opens a world of possibilities. For those just coming up in the industry, it is absolutely vital they go all in, learn fast, act faster, leap ahead or risk being left out in the cold.”
