Expect all the big players in AI to be spending lavishly on ads during the Super Bowl this year, including rivals OpenAI and Anthropic — with the latter taking not one but two swings at its bigger competitor.
Yes, this will be the AI Bowl, and maybe that is what people will call it after the barrage of ads from AI companies and tech companies looking to promote their new AI-driven products. Similar to the weird and anomalous Crypto Bowl of 2022, when crypto wallet companies and others in the space spent millions on ads that no one saw coming, this will be a dominant theme for those who enjoy the array of new ads airing during the Super Bowl — though it was pretty easy to see this one coming.
The Super Bowl is often a time when we get a microcosm's glimpse of consumer culture writ large, via the ad buys, and it often reflects the moment in terms of what companies have the most money to spend to get their names out there — beyond the usual beer, beverage, and snack brand ads you expect to see during sports games.
We'll be seeing ads from Google, Meta, Salesforce, and Amazon for sure. But the most heated rivalry may be between OpenAI and Anthropic, which was founded by SF-native siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who formerly worked for OpenAI.
For example, below is Anthropic's newly released ad poking fun at ChatGPT for introducing ads on its free version. The tagline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude."
Here's another ad from the same campaign, featuring a guy asking for advice about how to talk to his mother, and then being fed a creepy ad in ChatGPT's overeager tone for a cubs-and-cougars dating site.
The campaign has struck a nerve with OpenAI's Sam Altman, who posted a 12-paragraph essay on Xitter in response to the ads.
First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026
But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic…
He allows that the ads "are funny, and I laughed," but he says, "I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it."
He then takes a dig at Anthropic's far smaller user base to date, saying, "More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do."
And, he pokes further, saying, "Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people."
By contrast, OpenAI has a new ad featuring a South Carolina family farm using ChatGPT to manage its crops. It's not clear if a shorter version of the ad below will air during the Super Bowl, because this version is over two minutes and thirty seconds long.
Amazon's Game Day ad for Alexa, the extended version of which is below, features Chris Hemsworth and his wife Elsa Pataky, and mocks people's (very real!) fears that AI with smart-home features might try to kill them, HAL-style.
Meanwhile, vodka brand Svedka has produced the first-ever "primarily" AI-generated ad for the Super Bowl, featuring the brand's 13-year-old Fembot character and a new "Brobot" companion.
AI is also being used as a visual tool in this Super Bowl ad for Bosch tools and appliances, transforming Guy Fieri into a more generic dad version of himself, and back again.
As a sidenote, the Hollywood Reporter notes that talent fees on Super Bowl spots for A-list stars like Hemsworth have been going down, with companies now paying $8 million to $10 million just for 30-second ad buys — and the stars more likely to get $3 million to $5 million for their appearance, compared to the $10+ million of yore.
