Lalo Zanoni spoke about artificial intelligence at the Pilares Series: "Real facts are perceived as fiction."

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant promise; it's present in every aspect of digital life, from image creation to the communication strategies of major brands.

In his presentation at Pilares , the series organized by Los Andes and the TIC hub, journalist and technologist Lalo Zanoni analyzed how this technology is integrated into contemporary culture and poses a structural shift in content. His focus was particularly on the way we consume reality: as if it were a fictional series.

Zanoni explained that we're fully entering " Netflix mode ," a logic in which real events are narrated and perceived as episodes of an audiovisual production. Characters, dramatic twists, and polished aesthetics are no longer exclusive to fiction but instead become part of our everyday lives. From commercials for major brands to media scandals, everything becomes part of a narrative that blends entertainment, visual storytelling, and technology.

According to Lalo Zanoni, one of the most disruptive phenomena of recent years is the use of generative artificial intelligence to create content from scratch. “ We have entered the era of generative artificial intelligence , which allows us to produce videos, audio, images, and avatars that didn't exist before,” he explained. This branch of AI, which became popular with the launch of ChatGPT, gave rise to a new way of generating materials without direct human intervention.

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Marcelo Alvarez

Among the most powerful examples, he mentioned Coca-Cola 's 2024 Christmas commercial, made entirely with artificial intelligence: " They didn't use people. Everything in it was generated by AI. It's a homage to the '95 ad, made from scratch ," he explained.

Zanoni warned about the speed of these changes: “ What used to happen in five years now happens in one. New applications appear every week, many created by startups with just a laptop .” He also cited a specific statistic: “ ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months. TikTok took nine, and Instagram thirty. It's the fastest adoption record in history .” This technological acceleration redefines both the production and consumption of content.

He also illustrated how AI's visual quality has improved in a very short time. " Look at images from 2023, like the one of Will Smith eating noodles: they were incoherent, the hands came out with seven fingers. Today, in 2025, the sharpness and realism are breathtaking ," he noted. He even showed an AI-generated image of himself virtually trying on clothes as an example of its use in e-commerce: " I did this. I uploaded a photo, and the AI ​​gave me back what the jacket would look like. That's the direction we're going in ."

Lalo Zanoni proposed thinking of the present as a time in which reality is consumed as fiction . This idea, which he calls "Netflix mode," assumes that real events are no longer presented as such, but rather as cultural products organized into seasons, with conflicts, characters, and formats designed to entertain. " All events have a script, main and secondary protagonists, and are told in stories, posts, or memes ," he stated.

One of the cases he analyzed was WandaGate , presented with the aesthetics and pace of a series. “ It has seasons, narrative atmospheres, new characters like in any story: first Wanda and Mauro, then Elegante appeared, and the story continued to grow, ” he recounted. Zanoni also showed how brands are joining the phenomenon: “ Cif, Prime, and Burger King took advantage of that scandal to create campaigns. A Wanda story ends up being part of a marketing strategy .”

In this new ecosystem, the pillars of communication are being redefined: content must have visual impact, dramatic narrative, immediacy, and the potential to be converted into a meme. “ Today, without a meme, there is no communication ,” said Zanoni. The narrative of everyday life is no longer distinguishable from entertainment, and technologies like artificial intelligence allow this phenomenon to be amplified. Thus, we live immersed in a culture where every event can be a story and every story, a consumer product.