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Artificial intelligence Companies are playing their biggest role at the Super Bowl, with all the major AI players buying ads to showcase their tools – both consumers and businesses – to an expected audience of up to 130 million people.
This year’s Super Bowl ads cost an average of $8 million for a 30-second spot, with some going as high as $10 million, and more to produce the ads. Deep-pocketed tech giants and startups are seizing the opportunity to take part in the national conversation.
A battle began the week before the big game when Anthropic’s Claude launched an ad questioning OpenAI’s decision to include ads in ChatGPT. This ad sparked a response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which brought even more attention to the campaign. OpenAI will return to the Super Bowl ad slate this year after its first campaign – a 60-second spot – last year.
But it’s not just Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Altman who are competing against each other: all the major players in AI are gaining time in the big game. The campaigns are taking the place of certain major categories of advertisers, notably car manufacturers, who are withdrawing.
Google is running ads for the second year for Gemini AI after promoting its AI-powered features the previous two years: the Pixel’s “Guided Frame” and “Magic Eraser.”
Amazon leans into concerns about AI in the home with a spot for Alexa+ featuring actor Chris Hemsworth expressing comical concerns about the risks of AI. And Metarather than promoting its chatbot like other technology companies, returns with spots for its Oakley Meta AI glasses, which provide access to its AI tools.
A number of smaller AI companies are also purchasing Super Bowl spots to showcase their products to a wide audience.
Startup Genspark is marketing its AI productivity platform, with an ad featuring Matthew Broderick. Base44 introduces its AI-powered app development tool, claiming that anyone can use its products to create custom apps. And Wix, known for its website building tools, will introduce its new Harmony platform, which uses AI to enable website design.
Another one of those small AI companies, art.io listpresents its AI tools to consumers by placing the technology at the center of its 30-second spot. The entirely AI-generated ad boasts that it was purchased a week ago and created for just a few thousand dollars in just five days.
It’s one of many companies, including those that have nothing to do with technology, that have used AI to create their ads this year.
Svedka Vodka is running an advert this year for the first time in decades after pro-alcohol campaigns were banned. (Absolut is also running a big game ad.) Svedka is bringing back his Fembot character that appeared in his ads in the early 2000s, this time supported by an AI trained in TikTok dances.
Other uses of AI will be more subtle: Xfinity used AI to rejuvenate the cast of 1993’s “Jurassic Park” for a new commercial.
With commercial production costs for a Super Bowl ad typically starting at $1 million, and typically much higher — celebrities can charge millions of dollars for an appearance, for example — the response to this year’s Super Bowl ads could have major implications for how these high-profile spots are produced.