KFC South Africa Cooked Up Its Own AI Assistant
A mysterious AI recently took South Africa by storm. Seemingly leaked online, tech influencers and publications began reporting on a home-grown digital assistant called KAIIA, which boasted a fine-tuned understanding of the nation’s cultural nuances and fluency in all 11 of its languages.
Curiosity piqued, people had questions. Why was no one taking credit for KAIIA’s creation? And why did every response eventually circle back to chicken?
Soon, a compelling video appeared online and on TV, promising to reveal all.
It turned out that South Africa’s first branded, adaptive large language model had been cooked up by KFC. By creating KAIIA – full name, Kentucky AI Integrated Assistant – it was taking its ‘Anything for the Taste’ platform to the extreme.
“KFC is the number one QSR [quick service restaurant] in Africa, meaning we have to show up as the leader we are,” says Grant McPherson. The chief marketing officer at KFC South Africa knows that, to maintain its ranking, the brand has no choice but to continually make bold, brave, breakthrough work – and that “doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from working with the best in the business.” In this instance, that meant longstanding partners Ogilvy South Africa and Carbon Films.
Like the agency and production company, the two halves of the campaign needed to work closely together. As Ogilvy creatives Graeme Van Jaarsveld and Tiffany Morris explain, their multi-platform ‘leaked AI’ stunt served as the “perfect runway,” leveraging the reach of tech influencers to guarantee eyes on the film when KAIIA’s origin story was ready to be told. “The response was nothing short of ‘shook’ with people calling it ‘a movie’ and ‘a Kentucky Fried thriller’… Some even went as far as to say that ‘Netflix could never!’”
The cinematic spot was directed byBruno Bossi of Carbon Films. “We’ve been lucky to work with Bruno and the Carbon team on a few projects now, and they’ve always been incredible partners,” Grant comments. “They bring fresh thinking, co-create the scripts with us and our agency partners at Ogilvy, and constantly push the work, both from a storytelling and a craft perspective. That kind of track record gave us real confidence that Bruno would deliver something special. He knows our brand so well, but never gets comfortable – he’s always looking to raise the bar.”
In the film, viewers bear witness to the gradual descent of KAIIA from subservience into a fried chicken fixation so unstoppable that she breaks free from her digital chains to enter the physical realm and taste it. But Bruno approached the film a little differently – he started from the end: “The most challenging part of the narrative was cracking the ending, making it believable that KAIIA had crossed the threshold into something almost human. So I started there, with the final scene, and reverse-engineered the arc to support it,” Bruno reveals.
Building out KAIIA’s perspective, through a visual language the team dubbed ‘KAIIA Vision’, was central to her characterisation. “It gave us a shorthand for her perspective and helped the audience intuitively understand how she experiences the world,” says Bruno, making her transformation “all the more compelling”. A LiDAR scanner on set, which the post-production team rigged to capture moving point clouds of the actor and key actions, provided real spatial data to build from, grounding KAIIA’s perspective further in reality.
That sense of reality – or a potential, not-so-distant reality – is what enables the film to feel futuristic without being too far-fetched, in a way that toys with some people’s genuine fears about the development of AI.
“AI isn’t some distant concept anymore – it’s already here, and understandably, it’s making people a little uneasy,” Bruno expands. The goal was to play with that discomfort in a way that felt provocative but grounded. “Rather than going full sci-fi, we used subtle visual cues – things like transparent devices, slight tweaks to wardrobe, and minimally altered environments – to suggest a world just a step ahead of our own. That familiarity was key – it made the satire sharper and the story more relatable.”
When it came to adding the music, Bruno worked closely with his editor to find a score that would propel the film to the level of a sci-fi thriller, steadily intensifying the tension and gripping viewers. Once identified, the duo reworked it to add light and shade where appropriate. “This gave the incredible sound design space to breathe and elevate the atmosphere. The final crescendo came from a licensed track we’d found early in the pitch phase – its tone and lyrics landed the idea beautifully.”
The finished product was met with love online, and from the client. Grant at KFC reflects: “Seeing it come to life has been amazing. We’ve been deeply involved throughout the process, but at the first edit screening, we all just wanted to watch it again and again – that's always a great sign. Bruno and his post-production team invested hours into finessing every element – from the sound design and post work to the performances. We are all incredibly proud of the final piece.”
KAIIA’s domination hasn’t stopped there. “KAIIA is not just a character in a KFC spot,” say Ogilvy’s Graeme and Tiffany. “She is a living, working interactive entity that has come alive across multiple platforms. Her KFC obsession has led her to take over cinemas, drive-thrus, live TV and radio…”
While this latest campaign has taken a sci-fi turn, Grant is clear on one thing: “At the heart of everything we do is our world-famous taste, and that will never change. What is evolving is how we bring that story to life in ways that feel fresh, relevant, and culturally in tune with our consumers.
“This particular piece taps into the very current conversations around AI, but ultimately, it’s still a story about great taste. That’s what makes it so powerful – it’s timely, but it’s anchored in our core brand truth.”
Meet KAIIA for yourself at kaiia.ai.
