The Uptown Funk AI Trend: What It Is and Where It Started

The Uptown Funk AI trend uses AI to put new people or pets into a retro street dance based on the “Uptown Funk” music video: a lead struts toward the camera with a crew dancing behind. In these AI-made remakes someone else takes the band’s place: tech-CEO look-alikes, TV characters, football players, cats, or the creators themselves, strutting and dancing down a retro New York street to the song. It took off in October 2026 after an AI clip of tech CEOs went around X. On this site you can make your own 15-second version, with you or your pet leading the line and an optional second photo for the whole backup crew.

Where the Uptown Funk AI Trend Started

The clip that made it big was posted on X on October 7, 2026 by AI creator Gary Lau (@garylau_ai). It shows AI look-alikes of tech CEOs, with an Elon Musk look-alike up front and look-alikes of Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and others beside him, singing and dancing to “Uptown Funk” on a retro New York street. His caption joked that these are the guys who made RAM so expensive, and he wrote that he made it with MiniMax H3 on two NVIDIA DGX Spark machines.

The numbers, read on November 1, 2026:

• 458,177 views on the original X post.
• 1,867,278 plays on the same clip on Bilibili, uploaded by the same creator that day.
• 1,717,153 views on a repost by @thesimaximalist on X.

It wasn’t the very first AI take on the song. An Instagram parody with characters from the Turkish TV series “Magnificent Century” was posted on September 27, 2026, but the CEO clip is the one that turned it into a format.

How It Spread

• From October 8: reposts of the CEO clip in English, Italian, Hebrew, Spanish and Chinese.
• On Bilibili: “X sings Uptown Funk” became a title format, with versions starring all kinds of famous and fictional faces.
• New casts: Avengers and Marvel characters, football players, esports players, TV-series characters, and pets.
• October 15: the cat-crew version by @sergirodriguz, where he leads the dance himself and a crew of ragdoll cats in grey vests dances behind him (16K likes on Instagram; 29,400 plays on TikTok after he posted it there on October 21).
• October 18 onward: Google searches for “uptown funk ai” started, peaking on October 19–20 and again on October 26–27 (Google Trends, worldwide).
• October 20: @garyyy463 on TikTok put himself in as the lead with the music video’s crew (23,700 plays).
• Late October: TikTok tutorials showing people how to make their own version from one photo with AI video apps.

The Song and the Original Music Video

“Uptown Funk” is by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. It came out on November 10, 2014 as the lead single from Ronson’s album Uptown Special (2015), spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2016.

The official video, directed by Bruno Mars and Cameron Duddy, was released on November 17, 2014. It was filmed on the “New York Street” backlot at 20th Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles, not in New York. Bruno Mars wears a salmon-colored blazer while he and the crew strut down city streets, get shoe shines, put their hair in curlers and dance by a white stretch limo. It had 5,930,902,078 views on YouTube on November 1, 2026.

Why Everyone Is Remaking It

• Everybody knows the strut. With billions of YouTube views behind the original, a line of dancers moving down a retro street reads as “Uptown Funk” in a second.
• It works with any cast. The joke lands whether the lead is a tech CEO, a superhero, your best friend or your cat.
• A lead and a crew. The format has a star up front and a backup line behind, which makes it easy to cast one person as the star and someone else as the whole crew.

What the AI Version Takes From the Trend, and What Comes From Your Photo

The clip is generated by AI from a written dance routine (it isn’t cut from the music video), and the soundtrack is the original recording added afterwards.

From the trend:

• A retro New York-style street in daylight: brick and brownstone buildings, fire escapes, striped awnings, a neon pizza sign, a vintage police car and a yellow taxi.
• The routine: a close-up grin at the camera, a strut down the middle of the street with the crew in step, a low crouch with palms out and hands sweeping side to side, a side shuffle by the whole line, a point at the camera, and a spin that ends leaning back with arms spread wide.
• The outfits: a late-1970s funk look for the lead (salmon-pink blazer, white T-shirt, black trousers) and matching grey vests, white shirts and black bow ties for the crew.
• The sound: the opening 15 seconds of the original “Uptown Funk” recording.

From your photos:

• Photo 1, the lead: your face (or your pet’s face and fur), front and center.
• Photo 2, the crew (optional): one friend or one pet, copied onto all four backup dancers. Leave it empty and the crew are four strangers.

The AI follows the routine, but every render plays it a little differently, and it sometimes keeps parts of a photo’s own look or background.

Make Your Own Uptown Funk AI Video

Upload a photo in the generator on the homepage, add a second one for the crew if you like, and you get a 15-second, 9:16 MP4 with no watermark for 20 credits. The step-by-step guide covers which photos work best and how to post it.

Join the Trend Responsibly

• Use your own photo, or get permission before putting someone else in a video.
• Don’t use photos of celebrities, politicians or other public figures. Our generator turns them down anyway.
• Label your clip as AI-generated when you post it.

Questions About the Trend

Who made the original Uptown Funk AI video? AI creator Gary Lau (@garylau_ai) posted the tech-CEO clip on X on October 7, 2026. An earlier Instagram parody with “Magnificent Century” characters went up on September 27, 2026, but Gary Lau’s clip is the one that set off the trend.

Are those really Elon Musk and the other CEOs dancing? No. They are AI look-alikes; the creator says he made the clip with MiniMax H3 on two NVIDIA DGX Spark machines.

Where was the real Uptown Funk video filmed? On the “New York Street” backlot at 20th Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles. It was directed by Bruno Mars and Cameron Duddy and released on November 17, 2014.

Can I put a celebrity in my version? No. Photos of celebrities and public figures are refused, so use your own photo, a friend’s (with their OK) or your pet’s.

Is this site connected to Bruno Mars or Mark Ronson? No. Uptown Funk AI is an independent tool and isn’t affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars, their record labels, 20th Century Fox / Disney, Gary Lau or any creator whose clip is shown.