Swedish bearing maker SKF has used AI to recreate Greta Garbo as the face of a new campaign, more than a century after she appeared, before her fame, in a Swedish industrial promotional film for foreign audiences that featured the company. SKF says her readiness to challenge convention mirrors the values it wants to be known for.
In SKF's account, the digital Garbo is there to draw attention to its magnetic bearings, which float a rotating shaft so that nothing touches and friction disappears. It markets them to data centres, cooling systems and chip plants, pairs them with AI-based condition monitoring, and claims they cut wear and maintenance as well as power use. By its estimate about a fifth of global energy is spent overcoming friction.
The company is also reviving a payment model it says it first offered in 1919, letting customers pay for equipment from the energy it saves. Chief executive Rickard Gustafson said industry is under pressure to use less energy and stay competitive, and framed the offer as a way to lower the barrier to adopting the technology, much as it did a century ago. Communications head Per Nilsson said the way SKF talks about itself has to be as inventive as its products, and that bringing Garbo back is meant to get more people to look at them; sometimes, he said, looking back shows the way forward.
SKF says the project was developed with Garbo's family and Harriet Brown & Company Inc., whose support ensured her legacy was handled responsibly. The release does not say which AI tools were used.
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