Puma Kicks Gen AI Into Gear, Letting Fans Design Manchester City’s 2026 Kit

Puma is giving Manchester City fans the chance to design the team’s third kit for the 2026 season, using artificial intelligence to bring their creative visions to life.

The initiative lets fans generate custom designs, with the final kit selected through a mix of fan votes and expert judging. The winning design will be worn by the team.

“AI has become a little bit of a buzzword but [there’s] not a lot of examples of how AI is being used,” said Ivan Dashkov, head of emerging marketing tech, Puma. “The way that we think about AI is how we get it in the hands of consumers and let them co-create [jerseys] with us.” 

Despite a fair share of AI efforts in 2024 being met with backlash, brands are increasingly tapping into AI and fan engagement to reshape the future of sports merchandising.

The contest kicks off today and runs through December 20^th. In January 2025, the top 10 designs will be revealed, followed by another round of voting. The final winners will be announced in 2026, with the winning jersey becoming Manchester City’s official third kit for that season. This AI-designed kit will join the home and away kits.

This isn’t Puma’s first foray into gen AI. In September, the German sportswear brand used the tech for branding and online sales, focusing on enhancing its “AI-driven customization capabilities,” CEO Arne Freundt told The Wall Street Journal.

A YouGov survey conducted in July across 17 markets, with sample sizes ranging from 505 to 2,001 per market, revealed that 32% of consumers now have a more positive view of gen AI tools like ChatGPT compared to last year. However, this sentiment varies significantly by region, with only 17% of Americans reporting a more favorable opinion.

Still, consumer-facing AI in marketing can be unpredictable, biased, and prone to hallucinations.

Kit creation gets an AI makeover

Once people enter a prompt, the AI generates a kit in 60 seconds, offering four variations to choose from. Users can customize further by adjusting patterns, collars, and the Manchester City logo.

Fans can then share their designs on Instagram, Instagram Stories, or X.

The initiative taps into the passion of Manchester City fans, who already share their own jersey designs online.

“If you go on Instagram and look up Man City kits, you’ll find hundreds, if not 1,000s of illustrators and designers that create their own kits,” said Dashkov. “Everybody always has an opinion on these kits.”

For fans, designing a jersey offers an accessible, exciting way to bring their ideas to life with the help of AI. “AI gives them a chance to do that,” Dashkov added.

Puma spent over a year developing the AI jersey design project with FTR Studio and Deep Objects, using a Stable Diffusion base model.

“We’re exploring how to expand this [concept] but need to see the learnings of the first one before making concrete plans,” Dashkov said, adding that additional football teams or other parts of their business could get similar AI-driven experiences, but wouldn’t share more.

AI guardrails take the field 

To ensure responsible use, Puma has layered multiple levels of content moderation for the AI tool.

“There’s an industry-standard list of things you can’t prompt—certain topics, like profanity terms or content that’s restricted even on platforms like Midjourney,” said Dashkov. The company also filters out competitor IP and brands it doesn’t own.

An AI program reviews all generated images for safety, and any flagged content, such as humanoid figures like robots or aliens, is automatically replaced. Finally, all competition submissions go through human moderation before approval.

However, like many AI models prone to hallucinations, early testing revealed some quirks—one prompt requesting a “repeating image of Batman, of Batman and Superman” resulted in a jersey featuring those characters, highlighting the potential for IP-related issues.

Following the voting process, a shortlist of top entries will be reviewed by an expert panel, who will ensure the designs comply with FIFA regulations. The final 10 will be selected, and fans will vote again on the winner, who will become Manchester City’s official third kit for 2026.

Participants start with 10 AI generations (prompts) and can submit up to three designs. Voting daily—20 votes per day—unlocks more generations and submissions.