ABOUT

Cats are the most at-risk animals in shelters. Cats also love walking on computer keyboards.
So we helped rescue cats turn their keystrokes into AI self-portraits to help get adopted.

The result: THE WORLD’S FIRST CAT-GENERATED AI ART GALLERY.
Take home the art when you take home the cat who made it.


BACKGROUND:
Best Friends Animal Society is a nonprofit animal welfare organization with adoption centers in 7 markets across the United States. This year, one of their main priorities is cat lifesaving.

Cats are the most at-risk animal population in shelters, accounting for over 55% of all animals killed. Part of the reason for this is that cat adoption simply isn’t on people's radars – especially Millennials and Gen Z, who together have the lowest rates of cat adoption. 

For National Adopt A Shelter Cat Month in June, Best Friends wanted to get younger generations to consider rescuing a cat. And to do so in a more talk-worthy and culturally-relevant way than a traditional somber PSA.


SOLUTION:
The World’s First Cat-Generated AI Art Gallery.

Hosted on Pinterest and with physical exhibitions at Best Friends Adoption Centers, the gallery contains adoption self-portraits actually generated by the cats themselves. Masterpieces such as "sdfghjk," and “dvhhhhpjk”. Take home the art when you take home the cat who made it.

To create the unique self-portraits, Best Friends volunteers placed computer keyboards in front of adoptable cats. When the cats walked across, the keystrokes were recorded and provided as prompts to Midjourney along with a reference photo. ChatGPT was then used to provide an artistic interpretation on what the cat might have meant by their keystrokes.


RESULTS:
Launched during “National Adopt a Shelter Cat Month” in June, the cat-generated art was featured in local + national news and drew new audiences to Best Friends to check out the art and meet the feline artists. Resulting in their most successful month for cat adoption ever, with nearly 1000 cats adopted.