Last year’s Super Bowl ads promoted AI. This year’s ones actually use it. The first mostly AI-generated ad to air during the Super Bowl LX will come from Vodka brand Svedka, in a sign that generative video has ascended to the top. The 30-second spot features a voluptuous humanoid woman and her muscular male companion dancing at a club with bottles in hand. It was chosen as a part of a competition of fan-made media. A 23-year-old Nashville native developed the ad almost entirely by prompting AI models.
It wasn’t a play to save time or money, like other brands have been experimenting with, but a way to start a conversation, Sara Saunders, chief marketing officer at Svedka owner Sazerac, told The Hollywood Reporter. Other companies have incorporated AI into their Super Bowl commercials to a lesser extent, according to the outlet, and AI companies will return as well — a commercial from Anthropic pokes fun at ChatGPT incorporating ads.
AI adoption by advertisers has steadily trickled in over the last year, and Svedka’s commercial is the effect of industry-wide budget consolidation and competition among marketers to be cutting-edge. But most of these commercials air quietly, like in New York’s campaign to fight addiction stigma, without big names like Svedka or during costly Super Bowl time. AI ads are here to stay, not because any brand is doing anything particularly interesting with them, but because they’re becoming part of a routine.