But would they really publish a mediocre AI video to try to pretend he's alive? How could this possibly be useful when they can be pretty sure it'll get debunked soon? Could it not have a more complicated strategy behind it? Like, cause uncertainty/confusion.

It's possible especially if Iran was close to assassinating him. I think it's reused footage, where it was 2020 or something given all the masks. They reused the footage and remade the content. Also they have access to high level AI, so it's not Will Smith eating spaghetti but actually good l, where it fails is its memory i.e. foam on the lip remains or ring on finger etc. I think now they could put out content even more agregious, knowing that people will engage in it and analyse it