It’s not easy to be a city dweller these days Manchester City lost in a The malaise of draws and losses The Pep Guardiola era has never seen anything like it. So, in an effort to cheer fans up this holiday season (and most likely just start looking ahead to next year), the club and Puma have released a text-to-image artificial intelligence kit generator to fans as a tool for designing the club’s 2026-27 third kit Competition kit.
Cynics might look at this presentation and think: “You know, it sounds like Puma and Manchester City are looking for a way to make fans work for them while activating a partnership with an artificial intelligence company”, but just look at Manchester City who are the players Edson, Stefan Ortegaand Rico Lewis Already created with AI Generator Tool!
A net. Want a goalie kit? Groundbreaking. This special text to image AI generator is developed with depth objectthe company describes itself in its Twitter/X profile as building “the first truly decentralized design studio.” One of the most common problems with AI image generation is the library of images these programs use to “learn” and the blurred lines of plagiarism they create.
There isn’t much information on how DeepObjects and Puma trained the creators of this kit, but the generator’s website does ask users to check out a protocol that allows Puma and City to make adjustments to the generated designs. Presumably, this is to ensure that all image copyright issues are resolved, while also ensuring that the kit looks good and sponsors and badges are clearly visible.
As for the generator itself, it does eschew a lot of obvious cultural touchstones (I’m prompted to use the final scene production kit from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which only returns a Gilded Age Candlelight Dinner variant), and it does It can be that if you have a very specific image in mind, it can be a bit picky to get what you want. Liam Gallagher tried to create a pattern from a crowd of people wearing morning glory era style, returning with several kits made of cartoon women wearing headscarves instead of bucket hats and trench coats.
If you’re smart, people who may not be City fans can also sneak in some less-than-friendly references to the club, like financial charges File a lawsuit against the club Premier League.
If we had to guess, we’d say Manchester City wouldn’t use this design.
Anyone who wants to compete can do so by entering prompts into Puma AI Creator, adjusting graphic size, color, collar style, sponsor and badge color, etc. When you sign up for the site, you’ll earn 15 design points, and one design point will be used for each text prompt you enter. You can earn more design credits by reviewing other people’s designs, allowing them to become more involved in AI kit design. For every text prompt you enter, you’ll get up to four prompt variations, with 15 design points by default, which is a lot of potential designs.
However, by default, entrants are only granted two official opportunities to enter the jersey design competition – this number can also be increased by reviewing other fan designs.
A shortlist of the best designs will be considered by fan commentators and kit experts from Manchester City and Puma, who will come up with a list of their 10 favourites. Following this, a public vote will be held to determine the winning jersey that fans will see on the field in the 2026-27 season.
Citizens who want to participate in the competition must submit their designs by December 20. Public voting on the shortlisted designs will begin in January 2025.
Finally, a real set of jerseys will appear next season. Ivan Dashkov, Puma’s head of emerging marketing technology, said the kit’s creators were a way for “emerging technologies to bring fans closer to the game they love.” But honestly, most fans will probably be happy with a design that doesn’t include too many fingers.
