AKQA: Netflix’s It’s What’s Inside

What if you and your friends could swap faces, voices and identities – just like in a sci-fi film? In Netflix’s “It’s What’s Inside”, that question isn’t just asked, it’s brought to life. To promote the genre-bending thriller, AKQA created a surreal digital experience that let groups of friends play out their very own body-swapping story, echoing the unsettling themes of the film itself.

At the heart of the campaign was a high-concept, high-tech twist: a digital “body-swapping” machine powered by machine learning that allowed up to six friends to mimic one another’s face and voice. Using AI-driven voice cloning and face modelling, the platform turned each participant into someone else – from the shoulders up – for a brief but brilliant game of identity deception.

Once transformed, players had to guess who was really who, taking turns to speak and impersonate each other. Each session was completely private, and all voices and images were deleted at the end – adding a reassuring touch to an experience that felt deliberately eerie.

Dubbed the pseudogänger, the concept invited people to explore their own identity and connection with others in a world where boundaries between real and artificial are increasingly blurred. It captured the film’s dark, intimate energy and turned its core idea – what happens when you become someone else – into something you could actually play.

While the experience served as a promotional platform for “It’s What’s Inside”, it quickly became a talking point in its own right. Fans weren’t just watching the story – they were stepping into it, performing it, and sharing their own versions with others. The activation extended the film’s narrative universe and generated buzz by turning passive curiosity into active anticipation.

By merging entertainment, tech and psychological thrills, “It’s What’s Inside” didn’t just market the movie – it embodied it. A sharp, social-first campaign that amplified the film’s reach while reflecting its deeper questions about identity, intimacy and the uncanny potential of AI.