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

The 2026 Super Bowl ads prominently featured AI both as a creative tool and a product focus, marking a significant shift in advertising strategies for the event. Svedka Vodka debuted what it called the first “primarily” AI-generated national Super Bowl commercial, “Shake Your Bots Off,” which showcased AI-created robot characters dancing at a party. While AI handled much of the animation and expression training over four months, humans still crafted the storyline. This bold use of AI sparked debate about the future of creative jobs but succeeded in generating buzz. Similarly, Anthropic’s ad for its Claude chatbot took a humorous and confrontational approach by mocking competitors like OpenAI, leading to public pushback from OpenAI’s CEO. Other tech giants also leveraged the Super Bowl stage to highlight AI-enabled products. Meta showcased its AI-powered Ray-Ban Meta glasses designed for capturing extreme sports and adventure moments, featuring celebrities like iShowSpeed and Spike Lee demonstrating hands-free filming and social media posting. Amazon used a comedic