What Is the Uptown Funk AI Trend? The CEO Video, Explained

TL;DR — The Uptown Funk AI trend is an October 2026 meme in which AI re-casts the street dance from Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' 2014 "Uptown Funk" music video with a new crew of five, which started when Gary Lau (@garylau_ai) posted a 143-second version with five tech CEOs on X and Bilibili on October 7, 2026.

The Bilibili upload passed 1.5 million plays, and at least 81 Bilibili remakes with other casts followed in October 2026. You can make yours from 1 to 5 photos on Seadanse's Uptown Funk AI for TikTok and Reels. It's a 15-second widescreen video with the "Uptown Funk" song.

The original video pulled massive numbers across platforms right away. That's 1.565 million plays on Bilibili and 1.70 million views on an uncredited X copy.

Even with those views, people still ask whether the dancing's real. Someone even posted "Is its real?" on Threads.

When you look it up, the phrase brings up a few different things. You'll find AI voice covers of the track alongside the video clips. You'll also run into an older TikTok dance challenge that doesn't use AI at all.

We went back to the earliest posts on X and Bilibili to see how everything started. We read through the comment sections and tracked the remakes across the web.

Here's the full story: who built the original clip, why people find it funny, how it spread and how you'll create your own dance video.

What Is the Uptown Funk AI Trend?

The Uptown Funk AI trend is a wave of AI videos that re-cast the street dance from the "Uptown Funk" music video. Each one has a new crew of five, and one of them leads in the middle.

• The street dance: Five dancers in a row on a New York-style city street recreate the choreography, camera angles, and cuts from the 2014 video.
• The cast: The original version features five tech CEOs, while the remakes swap in any recognizable group that people know as a set.
• The joke: The executives whose AI build-out made RAM and GPUs expensive dance happily down the sidewalk together.
• The remakes: At least 81 remakes appeared on Bilibili in October 2026 alone.

The song's "Uptown Funk", Mark Ronson's 2014 hit single featuring Bruno Mars. On YouTube, the official video has 5.93 billion views.

You can add your photos to our Uptown Funk AI generator and you'll lead the row yourself.

Who Started the Uptown Funk AI Trend?

Gary Lau (@garylau_ai) started the Uptown Funk AI trend on October 7, 2026, at 03:12 UTC, when he posted a 143-second clip on X.

That's the evening of October 6 in US time zones. His caption opens with two lines: "The guys who made RAM so expensive are singing their hearts out to "Uptown Funk." Look how happy they are."

He says he made it on two NVIDIA DGX Spark computers (powerful desktop AI machines).

• October 7, 03:12 UTC: The first X post went live, gathering 404,000 views and 7,100 likes by October 25, 2026.
• About 30 minutes later: The creator posted the same clip on Bilibili titled "老马和AI巨头们激情演唱《Uptown Funk》" (Chinese for "Old Ma and the AI giants passionately sing Uptown Funk"; Old Ma is a Chinese nickname for Elon Musk). By October 25, 2026, it had 1,565,007 plays, 77,300 likes, 17,300 shares and 3,879 comments.
• October 7, 23:23 UTC: An uncredited account shared an uncredited copy on X captioned "Uptown Funk, but the CEOs showed up. Elon, Jensen, Zuck, Altman…". It reached 1.70 million views, more than the original X post.
• October 9 to 15: Copies spread across Instagram, including one with 1.6 million views captioned "RAM prices are through the roof, and now the people behind the AI boom are dancing to Uptown Funk".

People discovered the clip through several platforms at once. Under a YouTube copy of the clip, one commenter wrote "It is from Bilibili not X." (10 likes). Another viewer added "who else came from the reel" (42 likes).

The Bilibili upload reached nearly four times the views of the original X post. So Bilibili's where the video truly went big.

Who Is in the Uptown Funk AI Video, and What's the Joke?

The original Uptown Funk AI video has five tech CEOs in the row, with Elon Musk leading in the middle.

• Elon Musk: Dances in the middle position as the lead performer throughout the routine.
• Jensen Huang: Steps into the lineup wearing his signature black leather jacket.
• Sam Altman: Performs the choreography alongside the other tech CEOs.
• Mark Zuckerberg: Moves through the street routine dressed in a grey T-shirt.
• Sundar Pichai: Completes the main five-person crew on the street.

Other cuts circulating online add Lisa Su, Alex Karp, a Dario Amodei look-alike, and Liang Wenfeng.

The core joke's about hardware prices. Gary Lau's caption and the comment sections point out that the people behind costly RAM and GPUs are dancing without a care. An Instagram repost framed it as "RAM prices are through the roof, and now the people behind the AI boom are dancing to Uptown Funk".

If you'd like to stage a similar dance with your coworkers, you'll find the AI CEO dance with your own team worth a read.

Is the Uptown Funk AI Video Real or AI?

The Uptown Funk AI video is AI: the five CEOs never danced to "Uptown Funk" together, and the creator's own Bilibili description says so.

His upload description states "画面为 AI 二次创作，仅供娱乐" (Chinese for "the picture is an AI re-creation, just for fun"). It clarifies that the people shown didn't take part and have no connection to the clip.

• The dancers: The video uses AI character replacement (the AI redraws each whole person, clothes included, from the original video's moves). It doesn't paste a head onto old footage.
• The moves and cuts: The dance follows the 2014 music video's street routine beat for beat, with the original song playing underneath.
• The tell: Under a Bilibili remake with a meme all-stars cast, a viewer wrote "以前最好的就是换脸，衣服还是原本的，现在是AI真的厉害" (Chinese for "before, the best you could get was swapping just the face, with the original clothes; now AI is really impressive").

The realism confused several viewers across social feeds.

An answer on Threads responded to "Is its real?" by stating: "No it's not real, it's an AI-generated parody".

Every video you make on Seadanse's page is an AI video too.

How the Uptown Funk AI Trend Spread to 80+ Bilibili Remakes

The Uptown Funk AI trend spread through at least 81 Bilibili remakes in October 2026, each one re-casting the same street dance with a new group of five.

Most of these uploads use the same title pattern: "X领衔…激情演唱《Uptown Funk》" (Chinese for "X leads … passionately singing Uptown Funk").

• Zhao Benshan and the Country Love cast: The Zhao Benshan version went up on October 18, 11 days after the original. It's the largest remake, with 3.05 million plays.
• Ming dynasty emperors: Accumulated 978,000 plays.
• Meme all-stars: Attracted 788,000 plays.
• Ultraman Tiga and other heroes: Pulled in 552,000 plays.
• LPL esports stars: Reached 455,000 plays.
• CS:GO pros: Gained 293,000 plays.
• Iron Man and the Avengers: Logged 257,000 plays.
• Badminton legends: Secured 228,000 plays.

Smaller editions featured the Journey to the West crew (191,000 plays), the Breaking Bad cast, a Honkai: Star Rail boy band, and F1 drivers.

Most remakes follow the same pattern: five people the audience already knows as a set, with one clear leader out front.

Uploads climbed fast. New videos peaked at 12 on October 21 and 11 on October 22, 2026, and creators still published 4 to 8 videos daily on October 23 and 24.

Hand-made editions take plenty of trial and error.

Creators cut the street dance, split off the sound, have an AI tool re-make the footage against the original clip, and lay the track back on. Creators on Bilibili reported dozens of rerolls (makes thrown away and tried again).

One creator behind the CS:GO clip mentioned that making the short cut cost 300 yuan. Viewers pointed out small quirks too, like "这马斯克矮了点" (Chinese for "this Musk is a bit short").

You'll find every Uptown Funk AI cover cast people made if you'd like to see how creators put their lineups together.

We've also reviewed the Uptown Funk AI generators compared so you can see how different tools stack up.

Uptown Funk AI vs AI Voice Covers and the TikTok Dance

The Uptown Funk AI trend is an AI dance video, and it's a different thing from AI voice covers of the song and from the older TikTok dance.

• AI voice covers: Audio-only files where an AI swaps Bruno Mars' singing voice for someone else's vocals, without any video choreography.
• The TikTok dance: An older human dance challenge on TikTok set to the track, built around a freeze routine with no AI involved.
• The AI dance video: A full visual re-creation that re-dances the 2014 sidewalk routine with a fresh row of five dancers.

Seadanse's Uptown Funk AI is a dance video effect, not an AI cover: it puts your crew into the street routine with the original "Uptown Funk" song.

How to Join the Uptown Funk AI Trend With Your Own Crew

You can join the Uptown Funk AI trend with 1 to 5 photos on Seadanse, with your lead in the middle of the row and the "Uptown Funk" song under it.

• Add the lead: Put in one clear picture of your lead dancer to take the middle spot.
• Add the crew: Put in up to four extra pictures for your backup dancers, or leave those spots open.
• Pick a theme: Pick Keep my look, Tech CEOs, Wizard school, or Football team.
• Pick a quality: Pick 480p, 720p, or 1080p.
• Keep the box ticked: Confirm that you have the right to use the photos and that every person in them is 18 or older.
• Press Create: Start making your dance video, right in your browser.

Your dancers take fixed spots across the screen. From left to right as the camera sees them, photo 2 stands on the far left, photo 4 on the inner left and photo 1 in the middle.

Photo 5 stands on the inner right, and photo 3 on the far right. Any empty spot gets a new dancer dressed in the same style, so your crew's always got five people. One photo or five photos cost the same.

The four themes change what your dancers wear:

• Keep my look: It keeps the clothes from your uploaded photos, while new dancers match the lead's style.
• Tech CEOs: It dresses the crew in dark tailored suits with slim ties, a black leather jacket over a black T-shirt, and a grey T-shirt with jeans.
• Wizard school: It gives everyone long black robes over grey jumpers, striped ties, and knitted scarves in red and gold or yellow and black.
• Football team: It puts your dancers into navy home jerseys with big gold numbers and white football pants.

The price shows on the Create button before you pay. One 15-second 720p video is $9.90, paid once with no sign-up.

If a video fails, its credits come back automatically. Credit packs stay valid for 12 months, and you'll find every pack on Seadanse pricing.

You get a 15-second widescreen 16:9 MP4 ready for TikTok and Reels, exported without any watermark. It's ready in a few minutes, right in your web browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install.

Your crew acts out the full sidewalk sequence: the arms-up wide shot, the lead's solo shot, the low crouch and the kick step. Then come the lowest crouch, the lead's close-up and the lean-in finish. The "Uptown Funk" song plays from the first second.

You can feature yourself, friends, family, or coworkers, as long as everyone's 18 or older. You can also upload cartoon figures, anime designs, game characters, or pets. Putting a character in photo 1 turns the entire video into that art style, and a pet dances right in its assigned row spot.

It's all on Seadanse's Uptown Funk AI, so you can get started right now.

We've also put together the step-by-step Uptown Funk AI video guide to walk you through the full process.

If you'd like to see how the scenes are built, check out the Uptown Funk AI prompt.

You can also try No Scrubs AI or explore our full collection of browser-based AI video effects.

Uptown Funk AI Trend FAQ

Who made the Uptown Funk AI CEO video?

Gary Lau (@garylau_ai) created the video and posted it to X on October 7, 2026. He shared the same video on Bilibili about 30 minutes later. He says he made the clip on two NVIDIA DGX Spark computers.

Did the tech CEOs really dance in the Uptown Funk AI video?

No. The tech CEOs didn't dance to "Uptown Funk" together in real life. The creator's Bilibili description says the clip's an AI re-creation, made just for fun. The executives didn't take part and have no connection to the project.

What song is in the Uptown Funk AI trend?

The song in the trend is "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, released on November 10, 2014. The track spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Record of the Year at the 2016 Grammy Awards.

On Seadanse, the song plays under your video from the first second.

How long is the original Uptown Funk AI video?

The original Uptown Funk AI video runs for 143 seconds, or about two and a half minutes, on X. A video from Seadanse runs 15 seconds, starting from the opening arms-up wide shot through to the lean-in finish.

Can I put my own face in the Uptown Funk AI trend?

Yes. You can make an Uptown Funk AI video by uploading a photo of yourself to take the lead spot in the middle.

Up to four friends can fill the rest of the row, and everyone keeps their natural face and hair. Everyone in the photos has to be 18 or older.

Lead Your Own Uptown Funk AI Video

The Uptown Funk AI trend started when Gary Lau posted his tech CEO parody on October 7, 2026, re-creating the famous 2014 music video's street routine. What began as a joke about hardware costs quickly turned into dozens of viral remakes featuring different pop-culture casts.

Now it's your turn. You can make your own version from 1 photo, with the song playing, using our Uptown Funk AI video maker.

Written by The Seadanse Team; we read the first posts on X and Bilibili, the YouTube copies, the Bilibili remakes and their comments on October 25, 2026.

Related Articles

• How to Make an Uptown Funk AI Video With Your Crew (4 Steps) — your lead in the middle, your friends in the row, one press of Create.
• AI CEO Dance to Uptown Funk: Make Your Own With Your Team — the tech CEO cast, and how to put your own boss in the middle.
• Uptown Funk AI Cover Videos: CEOs, Emperors, Wizards and Your Crew — the casts people put in the row, and ideas for yours.
• Best Uptown Funk AI Generators (2026): 9 Tools Compared — every route to the trend, side by side.
• Uptown Funk AI Prompt (Copy-Ready): Every Dancer's Spot, Shot by Shot — the prompt behind the video, if you'd rather write it yourself.