Super Bowl LX is nearly here, with the Seattle Seahawks taking on the New England Patriots. While Bad Bunny will be the star of the halftime show, AI could be the star of the commercial breaks, much like crypto was a few years ago.
Last year’s Super Bowl featured a Google Gemini ad that fumbled a Gouda cheese stat, and this year’s game is already slated to include an ad for Anthropic’s AI platform that takes jabs at its competitors, namely OpenAI. AI-generated ads could make an appearance, too.
Super Bowl LX is set to kick off at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT on Sunday, February 8th, and is being broadcast on NBC and Peacock.
AI-generated ads dropped the ball at this year’s Super Bowl
Image: ArtlistIt feels like everyone who produced ad spots for this year’s Super Bowl with generative AI failed in terms of making gen AI seem useful or like something worth getting excited about. Though we’ve seen plenty of AI-generated commercials before (at previous Super Bowls, no less), this year’s event was oversaturated with them. That’s in part because image and video generation models have become more sophisticated in the past year — though still subpar compared to what humans create, they’re just improved enough for a number of brands to now be comfortable having their names associated with AI-derived footage.
Also, it’s much, much cheaper and faster to use gen AI, which is convenient when the cost for 30-second ad spots at this year’s Super Bowl ranged anywhere from $8–$10 million. With traditionally produced ads from previous Super Bowls, you could really see how spending money on production ultimately led to commercials that felt more premium than what you would usually see on television. But this year, there was an undeniable cheap and sloppy quality to many of the advertisements. Here are some of them.
Read Article >- Ring advertised its neighborhood surveillance network.
The Search Party ad showed Jamie Siminoff’s vision of what connected cameras can do, and it seems to suggest they will only use that power to find lost dogs.
- AI.com promises agents or something.
This 30-second Super Bowl ad dangled handles on the new AI.com platform with names like “Mark,” “Sam,” and “Elon.” If you’re not sure what it is, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says he’s leading this platform also, and that it will “mainstream AI agents and AGI in the same way he led mass consumer adoption of cryptocurrency.”
Remember what happened after Crypto.com’s Super Bowl ad in 2022?
- Pokémon 30.
This Super Bowl ad pulls together a grab bag of global celebrities (Lady Gaga, Trevor Noah, Jisoo, Charles Leclerc, Lamine Yamal, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Young Miko) to ask which one is their favorite.
- Mr. Beast and Rainbolt pop up with Super Bowl ad contests.
Redfin is doing a geoguessing-themed game of skill to give away a million-dollar house in its app, based on clues found in its Super Bowl ad, and Rainbolt is part of the promo — but he’s not allowed to help, based on the rules here.
Meanwhile, Salesforce’s Mr. Beast ad promises a million-dollar giveaway based on the clues in its 30-second ad.
- T-Mobile and Coinbase’s Super Bowl ads used the Backstreet Boys in very different ways.
And neither one had noticeable AI. T-Mobile brought the actual Backstreet Boys in, while Coinbase broke things up with a weird karaoke-style presentation of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” to highlight its crypto exchange without actually mentioning crypto.
- Pepsi snags the polar bear for an apparently AI-free ad.
After so many people hated Coke’s AI holiday ad, Pepsi’s Taika Waititi-directed Super Bowl ad looks like standard CG, as a bear chooses Pepsi over Coke in a blind taste test.
Pepsi exec Gustavo Reyna told AdWeek that it focused on human touch because “f there’s something we care about and we believe in, it’s in the craft and the creativity of our people, our talent, and our partners.”
- Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad has a change that made it less directly about OpenAI and ChatGPT.
The round of Big Game ads Anthropic previewed earlier this week set Sam Altman off, as he called them “clearly dishonest.”
Now, while the original ad says, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” nodding to OpenAI’s plans, the one that aired replaced it with a new tagline: “There is a time and place for ads. Your conversations with AI should not be one of them.”
Anthropic’s original Super Bowl ad’s closing message, which is not the same as the one that aired on Sunday. Image: Anthropic - OpenAI’s Super Bowl ad claims “You can just build things” with Codex.
As OpenAI and Anthropic feud over AI advertising, both companies are running Super Bowl ads for their AI products. After OpenAI boss Sam Altman said its ad would focus on “builders,” OpenAI debuted this ad about its AI coding agent, Codex.
ChatGPT is much more well-known, but enterprise use of tools like Codex is probably where OpenAI’s money is.
- Pixar previews Hoppers.
Just before kickoff, Disney and Pixar previewed their next CG family flick, Hoppers. As we’ve heard and seen in a teaser trailer, this one follows a world where people put their minds into 3D-printed versions of animals to try and live among them. It’s coming to theaters on March 6th, although the YouTube description mentions an early viewing window on February 28th.
- SpaceX brings Starlink to the Super Bowl broadcast.
The first Super Bowl ad from SpaceX apparently didn’t have enough time left in production to mention its newly-joined X / xAI elements, but it is promoting the idea of global satellite internet.
- A space crab made of rocks would die for Ryan Gosling in the final Project Hail Mary trailer.
The adaptation of Andy Weir’s best-selling novel is hitting theaters on March 20th. But, before that, we’re getting our clearest look yet at Rocky, the alien that befriends Gosling’s Ryland Grace. This trailer really ramps up the drama and… wait, why is Grace teaching Rocky to dance?
- From Crypto.com to AI.com.
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek is getting in on the Super Bowl AI commercial break craze by launching his new AI.com website during the game. A press release describes the site as a way for users to “generate a private, personal AI agent that doesn’t just answer questions, but actually operates on the user’s behalf.”
Image: Kris Marszalek - Alexa Plus tries to kill Chris Hemsworth in Amazon’s Super Bowl ad.
Hemsworth’s latest action scene isn’t in an Avengers movie, but a stand-off with Amazon’s AI assistant, which he fears is planning elaborate ways to kill him. Maybe Ultron is still fresh in the Thor actor’s mind. It’s far from the only ad for AI in this year’s Super Bowl.
Sam Altman responds to Anthropic’s ‘funny’ Super Bowl ads
Image: The VergeSam Altman responded to Anthropic’s new Super Bowl ad in an X post on Wednesday, saying the OpenAI competitor’s campaign is “clearly dishonest,” and called it “on brand” for Anthropic to “doublespeak.” “We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them,” he wrote. “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.” You can read his statement in full, below.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI research executives who reportedly left over differences in opinions on AI safety and mission, doesn’t mention OpenAI or ChatGPT by name in its Super Bowl Sunday ad campaign. But in contrast to OpenAI’s January news that it would soon start testing ads, Anthropic says, “Our users won’t see ‘sponsored’ links adjacent to their conversations with Claude; nor will Claude’s responses be influenced by advertisers or include third-party product placements our users did not ask for.”
Read Article >- Anthropic’s first Super Bowl ad dunks on ChatGPT.
“Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” is a clear shot at OpenAI’s decision to bring ads to ChatGPT without mentioning it by name. There are four commercials in the campaign, with one trimmed to thirty-seconds to air during the Super Bowl at a cost of around $8 million.
- Don’t expect any Kalshi or Polymarket ads during the Super Bowl.
The NFL has added prediction markets to its list of “prohibited categories” for commercials in Super Bowl LX. However, as Front Office Sports points out, sports betting isn’t on that list. While there will be limits on the number of sports bettor ads allowed, the league seems to be drawing a distinction between the two categories.
NFL Won't Allow Prediction-Market Super Bowl Commercials[Front Office Sports]
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