This Walking Robot Billboard Could Be a Global Media Offering “As Soon As 2026”

This month, the first-ever fully synchronised, three-robot billboard was released in LA’s Manhattan Beach, roaming the promenade like a metallic, marketing millipede. Adorned with the taglines ‘Bots are here’ and ‘Not all bots are this innocent’, the machine promoted the importance of being able to tell the difference between humans and bots in an age of AI.

This messaging is the raison d'être for World - the brand behind this ‘BotBoard’ activation. World is a crypto project founded in 2019 by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Alex Blania, via their company Tools for Humanity. World’s goal is to help distinguish between humans and AI online, doing so with iris (eye-scanning) biometrics that link to a World ID, the World App, and World Chain blockchain for ‘universally inclusive finance’.

Partnering with the aptly-named Cheil Agency Network, Iris Worldwide, and production studio MachineHistories, the brand brought its World ID product – and the bot versus human conversation – into the real world with the first billboard fully powered by a unified robot network.

“We needed to bring awareness to World ID, the first ever anonymous proof of humanness. The only problem was, bots also control the ads that people get online,” says Iris Worldwide’s chief creative officer Alex Abrantes, speaking with LBB. “So we couldn’t be on the internet, even though the brand and product were there. We had to find a new way. And to get the voltage we needed, we couldn’t just use traditional media, we had to create a new one.”

Hoping to create a memorable experience where World could participate in culture and bring its product into real life, the idea for ‘BotBoard’ was born. “One simple thought, but right on strategy and what the brand stands for.”

​John Patroulis, chief marketing officer at Tools for Humanity and former worldwide CCO at Grey, said in a statement, “Building a real human network will be fundamental to unlocking the benefits of AI for everyone, and ‘BotBoard’ is meant to be a fun way to demonstrate why we need it.”

Understanding the responsibility that comes with being the first to do something, and the potential future uses of this mechanical medium, Alex tells LBB that the team couldn’t compromise on craft when engineering the ‘BotBoard’. “It’s so much more complicated than putting a billboard on top of robots. The dream was to make the bots completely independent. And they had to be in sync, so we had to create a whole new coding. It took months from the initial idea to the final product.

“Our design and creative teams at Iris worked hand in hand with our partners from MachineHistories to make sure the vision for ‘BotBoard’ came to life. It was genuinely an amazing project to be part of.”

Once the technology had been developed, however, the challenge still wasn’t over as taking a ‘BotBoard’ for a stroll down the streets of LA is no walk in the park. “It’s never been done before, so it was an interesting conversation explaining the permit needed for sure,” said Alex. “The only real challenge was the amount of interest she generated and people gathering around her for a closer look.

“We didn’t know how people would react to it, but the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The moment that our ‘BotBoard’ arrived, people would instantly interact with it, take pictures and film it. Dogs loved it too!”

As well as overcoming the potentially menacing robotic appearance, the creative team also had to communicate possibly frightening information. “It’s a true fact,” says Alex, “that in an online environment, around 40-50% of internet traffic is bots, but most folks have no idea. We wanted to make people aware of that without scaremongering or bringing a threatening tone into the mix. With ‘BotBoard’ we managed to dramatise the issue and provide the solution in a fun way.”

This first test of the innovative new media offering was deemed successful by Alex, especially evidenced by the ‘BotBoard’ also being used to bring attention to World’s ‘No Bot Shop’ – a one-day pop-up in LA, created by BBDO. Another ‘BotBoard’ activation is also planned for the Razer gaming store in Seattle to highlight the partnership between Razer and World that enables humans-only gaming.

World’s social channels will continue to amplify people’s organic reactions to the ‘BotBoard’ via four compilation films. And for Alex, this marks an exciting beginning for the technology in advertising.

“We’re actually having conversations with media companies about the ability to scale and future applications of the tech,” he says. “‘BotBoard’ started as an activation but it’s really becoming a global media offering. Hopefully as soon as 2026 on the streets!”