1. Headline & Intro
Super Bowl 60 quietly crossed a line: AI wasn’t just a gimmick inside the ads, it was the story brands wanted to tell about themselves. From Svedka boasting about an almost fully AI‑generated spot to Anthropic using its airtime to punch OpenAI in the ribs, this year’s game turned into a referendum on what kind of AI future consumers are willing to buy.
In this piece, we’ll look beyond the jokes and celebrity cameos to unpack what these ads really signal: about power struggles in AI, the future of creative work, and how comfortable we are letting machine‑driven systems into our homes, our workplaces – and even our healthcare.
2. The news in brief
According to TechCrunch’s roundup of this year’s Super Bowl commercials, AI featured more prominently than ever – both as a production tool and as the central product being advertised.
Vodka brand Svedka ran what it describes as the first primarily AI‑generated national Super Bowl spot, built with startup Silverside AI over four months, while still relying on humans for script and direction. Anthropic bought time to promote its Claude chatbot and used the moment to contrast itself with OpenAI, mocking the idea of ad‑supported AI assistants and triggering a public spat with Sam Altman.
Meta showed off its Oakley‑branded AI glasses aimed at athletes and thrill‑seekers. Amazon used a darkly comic storyline with Chris Hemsworth to introduce Alexa+, a more capable voice assistant. Ring promoted an AI‑powered "Search Party" feature for lost pets. Google advertised a new image‑generation model for home design, while startups like Ramp, Rippling, Hims & Hers, and Wix focused on AI‑driven automation in finance, HR, health, and website creation.
3. Why this matters
This Super Bowl was the clearest sign yet that AI has moved from tech press curiosity to mass‑market expectation. Ten years ago, an AI cameo in a commercial was a sign you were a "futuristic" brand. In 2026, not having an AI story is starting to look like the risky choice.
Different players are betting on very different narratives:
- Infrastructure and model companies like Anthropic used their spots as positioning weapons. The message "Claude won’t show you ads" isn’t just a product claim – it’s a values statement aimed at regulators, enterprises and privacy‑sensitive users, directly contrasting with OpenAI’s more commercial approach.
- Consumer platforms like Amazon, Meta and Google tried to domesticate AI fears. Amazon leans into the "AI might be out to get me" joke precisely because those fears exist; wrapping Alexa+ in humour and celebrity is risk management, not just branding.
- Utility‑ and mission‑driven brands like Ring and Hims & Hers tried to anchor AI to tangible human problems – lost dogs, mental health access – to counteract the abstract threat narrative.
Winners today are the brands that manage to look both powerful and trustworthy. That’s a narrow corridor. Svedka’s almost fully AI‑generated spot gets attention and cuts production costs, but it also accelerates a question the ad industry has been ducking: if AI can do the bulk of the work for a $7 million media slot, what happens to junior animators, VFX artists and production houses?
The immediate impact is twofold: marketers now see Super Bowl‑level validation that AI can front a campaign, and AI providers see that brand values (ad‑free, privacy‑respecting, or hyper‑personalised) are becoming core differentiators, not nice‑to‑have bullet points.
4. The bigger picture
These ads sit at the intersection of three longer arcs.
1. AI as creative tool vs creative replacement.
Svedka’s partnership with Silverside – the same shop behind controversial AI Coca‑Cola work – is the most explicit challenge yet to traditional CG pipelines on the biggest advertising stage. Agencies have been using AI quietly for years for storyboards, mood boards and copy variations. Putting “primarily AI‑generated” in the spotlight turns that backstage tool into a front‑of‑house provocation.
We’ve seen similar cycles before. When desktop publishing arrived, designers were told they’d be obsolete; instead, the job changed and the bar rose. The difference now is speed and scale: generative tools can produce passable work in seconds, and global campaigns can be iterated algorithmically. The risk is not that no humans are needed, but that far fewer are needed – especially at the lower rungs of the ladder.
2. Platform wars coming out of stealth.
Anthropic’s decision to spend Super Bowl money to swipe at OpenAI shows how high the stakes are for foundation model providers. This isn’t a bank comparing interest rates to a rival; this is one of the core model labs framing itself as the "ethical" alternative on the most mainstream stage possible.
That will likely encourage Google, Meta and others to sharpen their own messaging: safe vs powerful, open vs closed, ad‑funded vs subscription, “for creators” vs “for enterprises.” The Super Bowl used to be about car makers and beer brands; now it is also a battlefield for AI business models.
3. Normalising ambient surveillance.
Ring’s lost‑pet feature is emotionally compelling: who wouldn’t want to find a missing dog faster? But it also normalises a network of always‑on cameras, pattern‑matching unknown animals (and, by extension, people) across neighbourhoods. Amazon’s Alexa+, Meta’s glasses and Google’s generative home‑design tool all travel the same path: they promise convenience in exchange for ever deeper insight into our homes, routines and preferences.
The bigger story is that AI is becoming the friendly face of data extraction. The more natural and helpful the assistant becomes, the easier it is to forget that every interaction is also training material.
5. The European / regional angle
For European audiences, the obvious reaction might be: "Nice American spectacle, but what does this have to do with us?" Quite a lot, actually.
First, these campaigns don’t stay in the U.S. They live on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, reaching European consumers who may never watch a minute of American football. When Anthropic promises "no ads in Claude," that message hits EU CIOs and regulators just as much as U.S. viewers – and it conveniently echoes Brussels’ scepticism toward ad‑driven data models.
Second, EU rules will shape how similar products can be marketed and operated here:
- The GDPR and upcoming EU AI Act are likely to frown on opaque AI systems that rely on vast behavioural data without clear consent or transparency. Meta’s glasses and Ring’s neighbourhood‑scale viewing are exactly the kind of use cases regulators already scrutinise.
- The Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) put extra pressure on large platforms around targeted advertising and algorithmic recommender systems. An ad‑funded AI assistant in the EU will face much tougher questions than in the U.S.
For European brands and agencies, there’s an opportunity: to position themselves as builders of accountable AI experiences – clearly labelled AI‑generated content, strict data minimisation, human‑in‑the‑loop for sensitive areas like health.
And for local tech ecosystems – from Berlin and Paris to Ljubljana and Zagreb – the signal is clear: if you’re building AI tools, your story can’t just be "we have a model". You’ll need a stance on privacy, explainability and labour impact, because that’s what both regulators and increasingly sophisticated European consumers will demand.
6. Looking ahead
Expect this Super Bowl to age quickly as "the year brands shouted the word AI." If history is a guide, the technology will soon recede into the background of the narrative. We don’t talk about "cloud‑powered" apps in ads anymore; we just assume it. The same will happen with AI.
In the next two to three years, watch for a few inflection points:
- Regulation meets marketing. It’s plausible that regulators in the U.S. and EU will push for mandatory disclosure when an ad is substantially AI‑generated, and for clearer rules on how assistants like Alexa+ or Claude can recommend or promote commercial content.
- Union and workforce backlash. As more big‑budget campaigns brag about minimal human involvement, expect organised pushback from creative unions and production guilds. We haven’t yet seen the advertising equivalent of Hollywood’s AI fight – but the ingredients are there.
- Metrics over mystique. Once AI production is normalised, CFOs will ask hard questions: Did the AI‑heavy spot actually perform better? Did using AI cut cost and raise conversion, or just create PR noise? If the numbers disappoint, some of today’s bravado will quietly vanish.
- More open platform conflict. Anthropic just set a precedent. Future Super Bowls could easily feature Google, OpenAI or even Apple taking veiled (or explicit) shots at how others handle safety, copyright or monetisation.
For everyday users, the key risk is sleepwalking into an ecosystem of AI services that are extremely convenient but structurally hard to leave, because your history, preferences and content live inside them. The opportunity is that, under pressure from both competition and regulation, we might get assistants and tools that are genuinely more controllable, less ad‑driven and more transparent than the social networks of the last decade.
7. The bottom line
Super Bowl 60 confirmed that AI is no longer a supporting character in advertising – it’s the protagonist, the villain, and sometimes the punchline. Brands are using it to cut costs, tell new kinds of stories and draw ideological battle lines. That creates real risks for creative workers and privacy, but also a rare opening to demand better AI: more accountable, less extractive, and genuinely useful. The question for all of us now is simple: what kind of AI story are we willing to keep funding with our attention and our wallets?
