We’ve officially experienced an AI Super Bowl, people.
As everyone tuned in to watch the annual championship game, the biggest buzz wasn’t just about the Eagles’ blowout win and Kendrick Lamar performing his Grammy-winning diss track at the halftime show. It was also about AI being a consistent theme in several of the multi-million dollar ad spots.
From OpenAI’s Super Bowl debut to Google’s Gemini chatbot sharing cheese facts, here are some key highlights from this year’s Super Bowl ads.
OpenAI debuted its first-ever Super Bowl ad with the aim of bringing ChatGPT to the masses. This commercial marks the AI startup’s first foray into high-profile marketing and features a pointillism animation style, where black and white dots represent significant historical milestones, including the invention of the lightbulb, the moon landing, and the first email, ultimately highlighting the emergence of generative AI.
In the company’s commercial, the message is clear: remarkable achievements often begin with a single step. Reactions to the ad, however, were mixed, with many viewers arguing that the ad was a letdown whereas others praised it. It’s not surprising to see varied opinions, as OpenAI divides people already.
The Game Day spot comes on the heels of the company’s recent rebranding, which revealed a new logo and typeface and seeks to redefine the company’s identity in the competitive tech landscape. In a new video that announces the rebrand, OpenAI utilizes the same black dot motif.
Of course, Google took this opportunity to show off its Gemini chatbot to millions of football fans on Sunday. The commercial highlights how a father utilizes the AI tool to juggle preparing for his dream job interview while also raising his daughter and teaching tough life lessons.
It was a sweet ad, unlike a 30-second ad by Google that was posted on YouTube 11 days ago and caused a bit more drama.
That earlier ad, set in a cheese mart in Wisconsin, aimed to demonstrate how small businesses use AI in Google Workspace. But according to X user Nate Hake, the original video apparently had to be edited because the Gemini chatbot provided a potentially inaccurate fact. In the original version, Gemini claimed that gouda accounted for 50% to 60% of global cheese consumption. Although Google’s president of cloud applications, Jerry Dischler, responded to Hake that it wasn’t a hallucination as it was pulled from cheese.com, many speculate the figure is an overestimation. It now appears that the YouTube video has been altered to remove this stat.
While we guess that tweaking ads happens often, it’s notable that a large tech giant like Google made such a public mistake. However, it’s a reminder that AI can hallucinate, and not even large corporations catch them all the time.
Meta promoted its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in an ad spot that features Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, and Kris Jenner (the Chris trifecta, if you will) as they explore an art gallery. While Pratt asks the AI-powered glasses about the artwork, Hemsworth eats an expensive banana, a reference to Justin Sun, the Tron founder and blockchain billionaire who purchased a $6.2 million piece that consisted solely of a banana taped to a wall.
The Super Bowl commercial enlisted these popular celebrities to demonstrate its AI wearables, likely in a bid to boost its appeal among the general public. CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees in a leaked all-hands meeting that the company has sold over 1 million Ray-Ban Meta glasses in 2024.
In a Salesforce’s Super Bowl ad, the company demonstrates how “AI was meant to be.” The ad features “Interstellar” star Matthew McConaughey as he rushes through the bustling Heathrow Airport. After booking his flight online, he’s caught off guard by a last-minute gate change, resulting in a frantic race to catch his plane. However, maybe if he used Agentforce, Salesforce’s platform for building autonomous AI agents, he could have had a less stressful experience.
GoDaddy, the web-hosting platform, showcased its AI product, “Airo,” during its Game Day spot. The tool is designed to assist small businesses in creating professional-quality logos, website designs, and promotional content for social media.
The commercial featured actor Walton Goggins demonstrating how he uses Airo to create a website to promote his own line of goggles, aptly named the Goggins goggles. In the ad, Goggins says that actors are great at pretending, and small business owners can easily do the same. Because who needs to know what they’re doing when you can ask an AI to do it for you?
Water bottle brand Cirkul took a playful jab at AI during its Super Bowl ad. The commercial stars actor Adam Devine, who enlists the help of an AI assistant to order a Cirkul water bottle. However, the AI mistakenly interprets his request and ends up ordering 100,000 water bottles, highlighting the unpredictable consequences of relying on the tech for everyday tasks.
The ad also announces that Cirkul plans to give away 100,000 free bottles to customers viewing the game.
Along with major tech players running ads for the 2025 Super Bowl, several startups invested in ads this year, including fintech company Ramp, where Philadelphia Eagles’ running back Saquon Barkley is an investor.
