News | 20. May, 2026

Coworking Spotlight: Soda Zitron against AI Slop

AI Factory Austria AI:AT is launching a new blog series introducing startups, SMEs and researchers from the AI:AT coworking hub in Vienna and explore how they use artificial intelligence in practice. In this issue, Irdin (Nino) Begic, co-founder of AI media agency Soda Zitron, shares his perspective on high-quality AI image generation.

Guest article by Irdin (Nino) Begic

Artificial intelligence has changed the creative industry in a remarkably short space of time. Images, videos and entire campaigns can now be produced faster than ever before. However, this acceleration is also accompanied by a growing tendency to confuse speed with quality.

Much of what currently characterizes the visual output of generative tools is not necessarily of high quality – but simply fast enough. For many, this threshold seems to be sufficient. Soda Zitron, however, works with a different quality standard.

AI as the last step – not the starting point

Many of today’s AI workflows are based on generating images first and only correcting problems after the fact. Soda Zitron takes a different approach. The team treats generative AI as the final render step and not the start of production.

Most of the work is done before an image is even generated. This includes, among other things, the definition of:

Lens properties and distortion behavior
Light setups and light fall-off
Color pipelines across all shots
Framing, composition and camera logic
curated references and project-specific LoRAs

AI is only used in the workflow once these parameters have been defined.

This approach is based on the team’s background in film production, advertising, visual effects and high-end post-production – areas where visual consistency is based on deliberate decisions rather than trial-and-error.

AI-generated graphics rendered via a standalone European and fully local production pipeline. Photo credit: SodaZitron Media

Why production quality is crucial for AI workflows

In practice, generative AI often reflects the quality of the decisions behind it. A clear creative direction leads to more coherent and reproducible results, while inconsistent inputs often lead to generic visuals – regardless of how powerful the underlying model is.

Soda Zitron therefore relies heavily on controlled local production workflows. By using locally operated systems instead of relying exclusively on external cloud platforms, the team retains more control over image quality, reproducibility and data handling.

This also addresses a growing problem for many organizations: dependence on third-party platforms and AI tools. Functions, pricing models and workflows can change quickly, making long-term planning difficult. Local production environments enable more stable and predictable pipelines while supporting greater data sovereignty.

At the same time, the overarching goal is to make high-quality visual production more accessible. High-quality advertising and media production has traditionally been associated with large budgets and complex infrastructure. The combination of established production methods with generative AI now opens up new opportunities for smaller teams and brands to produce professional visual content more efficiently.

It’s not just about producing more content, but better, more consistent and more consciously designed content

About Soda Zitron

Soda Zitron is a Viennese AI media agency with a focus on AI-supported visual production, media workflows and creative content generation.

https://so-zi.net/

The team combines expertise in film production, visual effects, 3D art and high-end post-production and brings experience from international media and advertising projects to AI-supported production environments.

Soda Zitron has been part of the AI:AT Coworking Hub since February 2025 and brings the perspective of the creative industry to the growing interdisciplinary AI:AT community of start-ups, researchers, developers and innovation partners.

Idrin (Nino) Begic, StefanFraberger, MatthiasLinsbauer. Photo credit: SodaZitron Media

“The support provided by the AI Factory is particularly valuable for us in the area of knowledge transfer. Within Europe and especially in Austria, there is still comparatively little practical experience with generative AI in production environments. This is precisely why the exchange with other experts is so important. Especially in areas such as sales, marketing and business development, there are very experienced people involved here whose perspectives and expertise we can benefit from, while our own focus is more on the technological side.”

On April 13, Irdin (Nino) Begic co-hosted a meetup for the creative industry at the AI:AT Hub, where creatives, founders and AI practitioners came together to discuss how artificial intelligence is changing visual production and creative workflows. The common conclusion: creativity will not be replaced by AI, but enhanced. The decisive factor is not who has the fastest tools, but who has ideas, attitude and an understanding of visual language.

More insights into the work of Soda Zitron can be found in the interview with our partners from INiTS – Vienna’s High-Tech Incubator. Idrin (Nino) talks about it there:

How AI is changing creative work
where founders can recognize new opportunities
what it means to build a company while the rules of the game in the industry are constantly changing