{"id":287491,"date":"2026-02-08T15:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287491\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T15:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:54:08","slug":"2026-commercials-with-a-i-slop-from-meta-google-and-anthropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287491\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 commercials with A.I. slop from Meta, Google, and Anthropic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Remember all those ads about artificial intelligence during last year\u2019s Super Bowl? Probably not\u2014because even those of us who follow this stuff for a living can barely recall the details of Big Tech\u2019s ad blitz<\/a> amid the big game, despite the collective tens of millions of dollars<\/a> that companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Google poured in. So for Super Bowl LX, the fake-brain industry is working to make an impression on our real brains by turning to the cryptocurrency bubble\u2019s onetime game plan\u2014and bringing in all your favorite celebrities.<\/p>\n

Former crypto shills<\/a> Spike Lee and Marshawn Lynch are in the lineup, ready to show off their brand-new Meta Oakleys and add a sporty imprimatur to the wearable A.I. gadget that CEO Mark \u201cMasculine Energy\u201d Zuckerberg<\/a> is now branding as \u201cAthletic Intelligence<\/a>.\u201d Benson Boone and Ben Stiller make up the unlikely duo leading a retro-aesthetic dance-off for Instacart\u2019s \u201cBananas,\u201d nodding to the yellow fruit\u2019s meme status<\/a> among extremely online A.I. enthusiasts (and to the delivery app\u2019s own A.I. ventures<\/a>). Amazon\u2019s Ring, which has raised some eyebrows thanks to its recent incorporation<\/a> of facial recognition software, is attempting a PR turnaround by inserting its Shark Tank\u2013infamous founder<\/a> and his dog straight into this year\u2019s ad<\/a>, promoting Ring A.I.\u2019s purported ability to find lost pets. (Notably, Amazon also has a promo for its Alexa+ voice assistant, starring Chris Hemsworth<\/a>.) The automated expense management platform Ramp is deploying The Office\u2019s beloved accountant Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) as a human stand-in<\/a> for paperclip maximization<\/a>, with the app cloning Kevin enough times to have him take over the entire office space.<\/p>\n

Plus, YouTube titan MrBeast has been teasing his first-ever gametime ad<\/a>, on behalf of Salesforce. Details are still vague, but it appears<\/a> Slack\u2019s parent company will highlight Beast Industries\u2019 noted excitement over the workplace app\u2019s A.I. agents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little doubt that Sunday will herald the A.I. Super Bowl, where millions of Americans will get blitzed with constant reminders of the robot arms race whenever the cameras tune away from the Seahawks\u2013Patriots matchup or the Bad Bunny halftime show. It obviously isn\u2019t the first Super Bowl with A.I.-themed ads. It will, however, be the first with A.I. taking center stage\u2014a revealing gametime moment for the tech as it confronts investor anxiety, broader fatigue, and fears of impending economic crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n Staff
\n Bad Bunny Has Already Won The Super Bowl
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While not every ad is hawking some form of A.I., plenty will be incorporating its use, with and without celebrities<\/a>. Serena Williams is appearing on behalf of the health care platform Ro, which deploys A.I. in everything from patient conversations<\/a> to its newest ad\u2019s pre-production<\/a> process. Xfinity\u2019s first-ever Big Game bid utilizes de-aging software<\/a> to bring Jurassic Park stars Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill back to the \u201990s. If that isn\u2019t enough evidence that irony\u2019s as dead as the dinosaurs<\/a>, flip to Anthropic\u2019s four ads<\/a> about how its much-hyped<\/a> Claude bots will never, well, incorporate ads\u2014taking a clear shot at OpenAI, whose executives are not happy<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n

The real twist is that consumers also seem to loathe<\/a> this marketing ploy. 2025\u2019s A.I. ad spend didn\u2019t get viewers more excited<\/a> about the tech. Consumers surveyed this month by Ad Age and Harris feel mostly negative<\/a> about the prospect of more A.I. generations on the Super Bowl broadcast. The YouTube comments for Taika Waititi\u2019s Pepsi spot express near-universal relief<\/a> that, unlike Coca-Cola<\/a>, this soft-drink company doesn\u2019t go the generated-promotion route. (Svedka, meanwhile, has employed the same A.I. firm<\/a> behind the hated Coke ad for its own bowl spot\u2014and it\u2019s turned off<\/a> YouTube comments.) OpenAI is well aware that its big Super Bowl debut flopped last year<\/a>, and the ChatGPT-maker was already puzzling through how to make this round\u2019s minutelong spot more appealing before Anthropic came in hot with its diss.<\/p>\n

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The Biggest Star of the Super Bowl Isn\u2019t an Athlete\u2014or Bad Bunny
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The sheer saturation of new A.I. gambits, added to the mismatch with consumer priorities, give this year\u2019s NFL showcase the sector-specific recession-indicator vibes that have defined Super Bowls of the past. 2022 was a pride-cometh-before-the-fall event<\/a> for the cryptocurrency bubble, which collapsed in such spectacular fashion later that year\u2014thanks largely to Super Bowl ad client Sam Bankman-Fried<\/a>\u2014that none of its major brands have ever returned to the broadcast. (By the way, despite the Trump administration\u2019s corrupt bargains<\/a> with crypto execs, the coins themselves are once again crashing, hard<\/a>.) Mortgage lender Ameriquest was as conspicuous a presence in the mid-2000s Super Bowls<\/a> as it was an absence in the later aughts, having folded in 2007 when the risky subprime loans it specialized in helped kick off the financial crisis. And then there were all those bowl-game commercials for websites like Pets.com<\/a> and Computer.com<\/a> in 2000, when the dot-com rush brought attention<\/a> to a slew of digital startups that went bust<\/a> with the bubble.<\/p>\n

Does this Super Bowl\u2019s record-breaking A.I. ad splurge also portend a coming pop? Look at the business environment: The biggest names in the industry are swapping unimaginable stacks of cash exclusively with one another<\/a>. One firm\u2019s stock price depends<\/a> on another firm\u2019s projections, which depend on another contractor\u2019s successes. Necessary infrastructure is meeting resistance, and all-around investment in these projects is riskier<\/a> than ever. And yet, the sector is still willing to break the bank for the Super Bowl\u2014even though, time and again, we\u2019ve already seen how this particular game plays out.<\/p>\n

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