How AI-led ads played at the 2024 Super Bowl

The Future. Compared to the 2022 Super Bowl, which was dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” due to its abundance of crypto ads, this year’s Big Game had fewer AI-led commercials despite the AI hype. If new technology has the potential for embarrassing mistakes, brands may avoid investing in Super Bowl ads for that tech until it’s thoroughly vetted to save money — and face.

Just don’t fumble the ads
While most brands were unwilling to gamble their reputations on $7 million commercials generated with AI tools, some still advertised the technology in a positive light, reports Adweek.

• Etsy ran its first Super Bowl ad to promote its new “Gift Mode” tool that merges AI (OpenAI’s GPT4) with human curation to help shoppers choose gifts.
• Microsoft advertised its new Copilot AI app (the successor to Bing Chat) as “your everyday AI companion,” a creative tool that empowers people to do more than search.
• Google’s Pixel 8 commercial revealed how AI helps blind people take photos, while Crowdstrike’s spot, “The Future,” showcased how the company uses AI for cyber security.

Shake off the illusions
BodyArmor, the Coca-Cola-owned sports drink brand, went in the opposite direction, making fun of the unnerving imperfections of generative AI rather than trying to sell it as a “competent product.”

With every Big Game, there’s always an opportunity to market the latest technology as a catalyst for positive change, but like the BodyArmor commercial says, “there’s no substitute for real.”