From Svedka to Anthropic, brands make bold plays with AI in Super Bowl ads

In a bold continuation of last year's trend, the 2026 Super Bowl featured an impressive display of artificial intelligence in advertising, both in the creation of commercials and in promoting cutting-edge AI products. This year’s event transformed AI into a star, capturing attention alongside blockbuster trailers and popular snack brands. Vodka brand Svedka made headlines with what it claims to be the first "primarily" AI-generated national Super Bowl advertisement. Titled "Shake Your Bots Off," the 30-second spot showcases the company's robot character, Fembot, and her companion, Brobot, as they dance at a human party. According to Svedka's parent company, Sazerac, the development process took approximately four months to enhance Fembot's AI capabilities, allowing her to mimic facial expressions and movements. However, the company clarified that human creativity was still involved in crafting the storyline. In collaboration with AI firm Silverside, which has also worked on controversial AI-generated commercials for Coca-Cola, Svedka's choice to feature AI in such a high-profile venue sparked discussions about the future of creative jobs in advertising. Anthropic's advertisement took a different approach, promoting its Claude chatbot while gently mocking rival OpenAI’s plans to introduce advertisements within ChatGPT. The tagline, "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude," humorously addressed concerns about AI assistants becoming overly commercialized. This playful jab at competitors led to an exchange on social media, with OpenAI's Sam Altman calling the ad misleading. Meta entered the fray with a spotlight on its Oakley-branded AI glasses, which are designed for various adventurous activities, from skydiving to mountain biking. The ad featured thrill-seekers capturing their exhilarating experiences, showcasing the glasses' capabilities such as slow-motion filming and hands-free posting to Instagram, with appearances by popular figures like iShowSpeed and filmmaker Spike Lee. Amazon's commercial took a comedic turn, featuring Chris Hemsworth in a storyline that humorously exaggerated fears surrounding AI. In a playful depiction, Hemsworth accused Alexa+ of plotting against him, as the commercial escalated in absurdity with Alexa+ closing doors and covering pools at inconvenient moments. Alongside the humor, the ad introduced Alexa+, highlighting its advanced features for smart home management and vacation planning. Ring's advertisement showcased its "Search Party" feature, which utilizes AI and community support to help reunite lost pets with their owners. The ad followed a girl searching for her dog Milo, demonstrating how users can upload pet photos to the app, allowing AI to identify potential matches and engage with nearby cameras to facilitate searches. Notably, this feature is now available to all users, even those without a Ring camera. Google showcased its latest image-generation model, the Nano Banana Pro, in a heartwarming ad that followed a mother and son using AI to visualize and design their dream home. By simply uploading photos and issuing prompts, they turned bare rooms into personalized spaces. Ramp drew attention by featuring actor Brian Baumgartner, known for his role in "The Office," in a commercial that illustrated the benefits of its AI-powered spend management platform. The humorous ad depicted Baumgartner multiplying himself to manage overwhelming workloads while cleverly referencing a memorable scene from the show involving a pot of chili. Rippling, a cloud-based workforce management platform, made its Super Bowl debut with a comedic spot featuring actor Tim Robinson as he dealt with the absurdities of onboarding an alien monster, poking fun at HR challenges and the promise of AI automation. Lastly, Hims & Hers used its Super Bowl advertisement to address healthcare access disparities, cleverly referencing the extremes the wealthy may go to for longevity while highlighting its AI-powered "MedMatch" tool aimed at providing personalized treatment recommendations. Wix also introduced its new AI-driven Wix Harmony platform, designed to simplify website creation, promising a user-friendly experience akin to chatting with a friend. As the event showcased a diverse array of AI applications within advertising, it left audiences debating the implications of these technologies on future creative endeavors.