Generative AI floods Swatch Audemars Piguet launch with fake images, reshaping product hype

AI Promised the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Wristwatch. China Will Deliver It

Watch fans spent a week falling in love with colorful Royal Oak wristwatches that didn't exist -- then the real thing arrived. Now, fantasy is becoming a manufacturing opportunity. For a week now, Instagram's watch fans have been losing their minds over what looked like leaked product images. Vivid plastic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak wristwatches in bright colors: navy and orange, pink, yellow, and green. Captions guessed about prices and launch queues. Comment sections argued over colors. None of it was real. Every image was AI-generated. When Swatch and Audemars Piguet confirmed their Royal Pop collaboration on May 8, the teaser campaign left just enough ambiguity to allow the watch web to fill the void with its own vision. The result has been a weeklong hype cycle built not around the actual product but an AI-generated simulacrum of it. So, when the real Royal Pop collection dropped on Tuesday, ahead of schedule (perhaps forced by the volume of fake images circulating), yes, it turned out to be genuinely different and interesting. But for a significant section of the audience that had already fallen for the fakes, it was genuinely disappointing. This is a new problem. When Swatch launched the MoonSwatch with Omega in 2022, publicly available AI image generators capable of flooding the zone with photorealistic versions of the watch from single-line prompts didn't exist. Even subsequent editions as recent as the Snoopy "Cold Moon" didn't elicit the social pile-on the Royal Pop has endured in the past seven days. "The prelaunch hype has become a key part of it all, an enormously valuable part," says Chris Hall, founder of the popular The Fourth Wheel Substack (and a WIRED contributor). "Today's audience is even more clued-in than it was four years ago. It makes it very hard for the real watch to surpass expectations or deliver a genuine shock of the new, especially when the whole world has been generating its own images of what it might look like." It didn't matter that Swatch had carefully tried to manage expectations by teasing the lanyards first, signaling clearly that this was a pocket watch -- not worn on the wrist. Once the first few searingly vibrant plastic Royal Oak AI images hit Instagram, complete with plastic bracelets mirroring the iconic AP design, the algorithm kicked in. Soon, thousands were reposting wristwatch Royal Pops, while others set about designing their own takes, all as convincing as the last entirely unreal watch, willfully ignoring the obvious lanyard clue. The dream was clear: Watch fans wanted the moon on a stick, fantasizing about owning a hyper-accurate low-budget version of an iconic high-end wristwatch that sells for $20,000, and no official Swatch teases leading to alternative outcomes were welcome. Disappointment aside, the Royal Pop Collection is a legitimately interesting proposal. A set of eight pocket watches made from Swatch's bioceramic composite in two styles, Lépine (crown at 12) and Savonnette (crown at 3, with a small seconds subdial at 6), and priced at $400 and $420, respectively.

How generative AI ruined the most hyped product launch of 2026

Global hype moments don't happen in the world of watches all that often, but whether you know it or not, we're in the midst of one right now. Except unfortunately, AI almost ruined the much-anticipated Swatch X Audemars Piguet collaboration for everyone before it had even been fully revealed. How? The liberal use of AI's image-generation tools to create fake, but plausible images of the possible final product made all of Swatch's attempts to build anticipation by not showing the watch a complete waste of time. Worse, now that we've actually seen the watch, it feels a bit disappointing. The parallels to the world of leaked smartphones are obvious, and AI's impact will have lasting consequences. Related I thought wearables would be wild by now, instead we have a sea of sameness What happened to innovation? Posts By Chandra Steele Swatch's latest hype collab On-wrist Royalty It's best to set the scene before we go deeper. Even if you're not that interested in watches, there's a good chance you've seen or heard about the Swatch X Omega Moonswatch, which caused chaos when it was released in 2022. People queued for days to get one, scalpers charged 10 times the retail price for one, and it went on to see huge success and eventually spawn many different models. Swatch now has another collaboration ready for release, which it hopes will repeat the Moonswatch's success. This time, Swatch is partnering with luxury watch brand Audemars Piguet, best known for the Royal Oak. With models starting at around $15,000, it's a highly desirable watch that's out of reach for most. That's where Swatch comes in. It made it possible to own an officially licensed version of the Omega Moonwatch, which costs around $8,000, for $285, and it's doing something similar with its Audemars Piguet collaboration. It's safe to say anyone with a vague interest in watches, hyped-up fashion products, or who is keen to be in at the start of another Moonswatch-like gold rush, is very excited about Swatch's Royal Pop watch. We're used to leaked images But not of this quantity or quality Swatch started teasing the Royal Pop on May 6, but only with vague hints, and it did not show the actual watch. However, that didn't stop people from producing AI images of what they thought the watch might look like. Those of us who've been around phones for a while will be fully aware of renders, mock-ups, and other unofficial, essentially fan-made images related to an unreleased product. It has happened for years, and people have made a living off it. We see these images in news stories, and provided it's a reputable publication, the fact that the image is not official is made very clear. What's more, because most people looking at them will be aware of how these things work, we know they may not represent the final product. AI fakes dominated social media Altering public perception The AI-generated images of what the Swatch and Audemars Piguet watch may look like are, as you'd expect, beautiful, polished, and absolutely plausible. The images look like they're straight out of a catalog. Watch industry publications and many commentators know the game, just like tech fans know the game with phone leaks. No one at that level has been fooled by these images. The problem is on social media and for the casual watch fan. My Instagram Reels page was dominated by AI-generated images of the Royal Pop, and the vast majority looked absolutely real. Each is subtly different, whether it's the color or the placement of the brand names, but each shares iconic Royal Oak traits, such as the octagonal case, Tapisserie dial, and integrated bracelet. Looking at these images, it would be easy to assume that Swatch had either fully revealed the watch or that it had been released, due to some of the AI-generated images even showing the watch on someone's wrist. Unfortunately, Swatch had done no such thing. No one was prepared for the amount of fakes Or that the final design wouldn't be the same On May 12, Swatch published the first official look at the Royal Pop watch, and, well, it doesn't look anything like the AI-generated mock-ups. This isn't much of a surprise, but sadly, I think a lot of people are going to wish it looked more like the AI one, and due to the believability of the AI images, expect they may be the real thing, and the actual watch is a fake. This is where the massive influx of AI-generated images and Swatch's tried-and-tested, but a little outdated, teaser marketing campaign has worked against everyone. Swatch will have been aware of the hype its teasers would generate, but was it prepared for how much AI would play a part? I don't think so. AI has moved so fast that it's an entirely different world from when Swatch released the Moonswatch. Not only do I not think Swatch was fully prepared, I don't think the general public was either. Here lies the problem. When AI-generated fake images look so convincing and desirable, where does it leave the final product? It becomes something of a disappointment. Not just because everyone had "seen" it already, but because real life rarely lives up to fantasy. The future of phone leaks The old days are gone The watch industry is the prime proving ground for the use of AI to create fake images of a forthcoming product. Social media is full of watch content, and it gets plenty of attention. Subscribe to our newsletter for AI, leaks, and watches insight Want a sharper perspective? Subscribe to our newsletter for clear, evidence-based coverage of how AI is reshaping product leaks, watch collaborations, and public perception. The analysis helps you separate polished fakes from the real releases and understand industry implications. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. The Royal Pop is the ideal candidate for clever fakery because it's based on an existing watch and is coming from a brand known for making watches made of plastic. Sorry, bioceramic. Everything aligned for people to use the latest and incredibly capable AI image generation tools to create fake Swatch Royal Pop images. What's interesting is that the mobile leak landscape has been changing, and this may be the shape of things to come for tech fans, too. Take the recent retirement announcement by well-known device leaker Evan Blass, AKA @evleaks. While he states health and financial reasons for his departure, it's hard not to imagine his trademark leaked images may not hold the same appeal today, as they did when he started more than a decade ago. What we're seeing with the Royal Pop may be what we'll see more of for the Google Pixel 11, Samsung Galaxy S27, and the folding iPhone. Artist's (and I use the word loosely) impressions, which leave nothing to the imagination, and may end up being better looking than the real thing. I'll miss the good old days when all the hints about a product came from a render created from a case manufacturer's specs, a phone left in a bar, or an early prototype sold on eBay. The Swatch and Audemars Piguet Royal Pop watch will be released on May 16, and the queues outside stores have already started, meaning Swatch executives won't be all that worried about generative AI at the moment. We, as consumers and tech fans, should be a little more conscious of it.