To promote the release of its latest products, Apple – one of the world’s largest technology companies – has taken up sewing.

In this era filled with AI "food waste content," plush toys with eerie smiles, AI proxies, and deeply forged content that makes it even harder to distinguish truth from falsehood, the human touch itself may become a selling point. Demonstrating that something has been made by hand allows a brand to convey care, creativity, and an emphasis on detail. The effort put into the production process, as well as those small flaws that reveal human craftsmanship, can all become part of its appeal, making the brand seem more worth paying a premium for.

Preliminary evidence suggests that this approach is effective. A study conducted jointly by Ipsos ( Ipsos ) and Syracuse University tested 20 advertisements among a sample of 3,000 American consumers. The results showed that advertisements created by humans outperformed those generated by AI by an average of 14% in predicting short-term sales effects and 17% in terms of long-term brand health.

"Over time, human-made products may increasingly become a form of luxury," Stein Van Osselaar, a marketing professor at Cornell University who studies how consumers establish connections with the people behind the products, told Fortune magazine.

At Apple's " Welcome Home " launch event on October 13th, this human touch was embodied in the following way: Twin sisters from Sydney, Mar, used embroidery to recreate Apple's classic 1977 rainbow Logo. Instead of just showing photos of the finished product, Apple released a video that demonstrated how the pattern was stitched stitch by stitch by hand, from an apple with a bite mark to the leaves.

Apple’s advertisements aren’t always so delicate. In 2024, when promoting its new, slimline iPad Pro, the company used hydraulic presses to crush musical instruments, cameras, and other creative tools, which sparked strong backlash, leading to an apology. That same year, Apple also removed an advertisement filmed in Thailand due to criticism for depicting the country with overly stereotypical images. In 2025, Apple took down a video titled “The Parent Presentation” which taught students how to persuade their parents to buy Mac for them; however, the reason for removing this video is not clear.

Rather than letting the images generated by AI flood the streets and Instagram information streams, Apple's recent promotional efforts have put human-made art front and center. The embroidery advertisements continue Apple's tradition of creating stop-motion promotional campaigns for Mac, mini, and Apple Games, which also highlight the human labor process behind these animations.

Neither Apple nor the Mar token issuance r/ Maricar has responded to Fortune magazine's request for a comment.

The person behind the picture

The appeal of human craftsmanship lies not only in the number of hours it takes to complete a piece of work.

"What really matters to people is feeling connected to others," says Van Osselaar.

To explain this connection, he mentioned the scene from 200 years ago when people would go to the cobbler in the village to buy shoes. Customers would discuss what they needed with the shoemaker, and then return to pick up a pair of shoes made specifically for them. Shoes were no longer just objects; even after the customer left the shop, they continued to carry a connection between the customer and the maker.

In contrast, advertising does not establish the same kind of relationship, but showcasing artists and their creative processes makes the people behind a company's marketing efforts visible. The behind-the-scenes work reveals the skills and level of detail that are invested.

This distinction is very important for the research that Van Osselaar is pursuing. A working paper he and his colleagues are writing indicates that people's preference for content created by humans may reflect an appreciation for the creators themselves, rather than just a dislike for the competing technologies.

"We find that people are often not rejecting algorithms, but rather appreciating humanity," he said, "People prefer things made by humans."

In a study published in the Journal of Business Research by Dan Rice from Louisiana State University ( Dan Rice ) and Ripinka Patel from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville ( Ripinka Patil ), participants were exposed to the same AI generated advertisements. However, some advertisements were labeled with AI disclosure information, while others were not. The presence of such labels made participants perceive that less effort had been put into creating the advertisements, which in turn reduced their willingness to interact with the brand and lowered their evaluation of the product quality.

"Finished advertisements don't need to look different at all," Rice told Fortune magazine. "Even if the images look the same, as long as consumers see the phrase 'AI', they become highly sensitive to the production process."

For Apple, showcasing the time-consuming and labor-intensive actions in embroidery or stop-motion animations is essentially turning the production process itself into part of the advertisement. Embroidery may not represent any technological breakthrough, but watching someone complete it draws the audience's attention to the human labor that would otherwise be invisible in the final product.

"Visible traces of human effort can convey care, craftsmanship, and an attention to detail," Rice said, "and these ideas will spread to a broader brand awareness."

And this human touch has not gone unnoticed by the audience either. A user with the ID Instagram commented under the video, “In the world of AI, I like that you still focus on humans.” Another user was delighted to see that human-made products were still available in 2026 and wrote, “I really enjoy seeing this.”

This does not mean that every brand should pick up a needle and thread. Rice and Patil found that when participants were exposed to information emphasizing human involvement in the production of AI, the negative impact of revealing AI was stronger; however, this negative impact was reduced when the information emphasized automated production. In other words, the method of production needs to match the focus of the promotion. AI may be more suited to a narrative that emphasizes speed and efficiency, rather than the time-consuming and labor-intensive human care.

Can craftsmanship bring a premium?

Whether Apple's embroidery advertisements will translate into more device sales is another question. Van Osselaar says that the company can test whether highlighting human involvement will change the number of clicks and purchases.

"These effects may be very small, as it only relates to the advertisement itself," he said, "not to the product itself."

He believes that if the product is handmade from the beginning, its potential is even greater. To illustrate this appeal, he described a scenario: in order to build a wooden canoe together with a master craftsman, one would travel specifically to Maine. Of course, buyers could also purchase a ready-made canoe, but the experience of completing it alongside the maker brings far more than just the finished product itself.

As the generation of substitutes by AI becomes more and more widespread, Van Osselaar believes that human-made works may be able to command increasingly higher premiums when sold.

“I can imagine that companies will start to put slogans like ‘Made by human hands’ on their advertisements or products,” he said.

He also proposed a hypothetical rewrite of a slogan familiar to Apple fans.

"Made by humans from Wisconsin."