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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Super Bowl ads in the advertising industry?
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Pro's number one most trusted app, based on August 2025 proprietary survey. Hey listeners, it's Belle. Today is Super Bowl Sunday.
Chapter 2: How is artificial intelligence changing the landscape of advertising?
Before you huddle up for the big game, we're bringing you an episode of What's New Sunday we thought you might enjoy. We're taking a look at the other main Super Bowl event, the ads. This year, artificial intelligence will be front and center, with some of the biggest players in AI coming off the sidelines as the competition heats up.
If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to check out What's News wherever you like to listen. Now, let's kick off the show. Hey, What's News listeners. It's Sunday, February 8th. I'm Alex Oseleff for The Wall Street Journal.
This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. On today's show, artificial intelligence is reshaping the advertising industry.
Chapter 3: What are the costs associated with Super Bowl advertising this year?
We get into the visible and subtle ways AI is changing commercials and what it means now that AI companies themselves are getting in on the action. It's Super Bowl Sunday, which means it's the advertising industry's, well, Super Bowl. This year, 30 seconds of Super Bowl ad time costs more than $8 million for many companies. And that's just for the time.
They can spend tens of millions more on making the ads themselves. So increasingly, companies are turning to artificial intelligence to cut the cost of making an ad. At the same time, AI companies themselves are getting into the advertising game, too.
I sat down with WSJ journalists Katie Dayton and Suzanne Vernizza, who cover advertising all year round, about what this year's game has in store and how the industry is changing. Katie, Suzanne, thanks for being here. Have you seen any of the ads ahead of this year's Super Bowl?
Chapter 4: Which AI companies are participating in this year's Super Bowl?
And what are some of the big takeaways? Katie, let's start with you.
Yeah, we have definitely seen the ads. We are getting this similar variety that we've had for the past few years. So a lot of tech brands in there, but also a lot of brands that people would probably think of as household names.
We've seen probably everything. There are a few surprises. Companies can spend up to $50 million just to create the spot. If you include CGI, celebrities, you're going to see tons of celebrities. And we've seen this as a trend for the last five years.
Chapter 5: How are companies utilizing AI in ad production?
So it sounds like some things are definitely going to be the same this year. But over the past year, at least, it seems like something's been shifting, right? The amount of AI in advertising seems like it's really having its moment. So, Suzanne, I want to ask you a little bit about how AI companies themselves are getting in the Super Bowl this year.
Every year there's a big category that comes out, and this year it's going to be the AI Bowl, definitely. You've got Anthropic that's making their Super Bowl debut. OpenAI is expected to air a spot. Microsoft is going to be pushing Copilot, so that's a lot. Is it new that these companies are getting in on advertising like this?
Over the last two years, there's basically been an ad battle that's starting to form.
Chapter 6: What are the creative challenges of AI-generated advertisements?
They're pouring billions of dollars into creating these companies, and now there's a death match going on for users because they have to make sure that users know which Do you like Chatbot? Do you like ChatGPT? Do you like Claude? And so it's name recognition and there's nothing better for name recognition in today's world than the Super Bowl Sunday.
You're going to get 100 million viewers typically and you can look back in history and companies have launched successfully year after year on the Super Bowl. Do the ads have to be good? The ads have to really be good because there's so many competing for attention, right? And so if they're not good, you're going to get negative stories the next day or worse, no one's even going to remember them.
So there's a big competition on whose are going to be the most creative.
Chapter 7: Is AI effective in creating memorable ads?
And like that's why you see lots of companies putting multiple celebrities, hoping that helps them stick out.
And for these AI companies, are they using AI to make their ads?
They are not in most cases. What they're using AI for is like the research or to brief their agencies or some of the grunt work that happens. Obviously, we've seen lots of companies put AI creative out there, and it doesn't look great in many cases. That's the future. There's no doubt. But right now, people are using it on the back end more than the front end.
And I think Super Bowl, no one wants to risk the millions of dollars that it costs with people being upset about what it looks like.
When we've seen companies use AI to produce their ads so far, they're making such a big deal about it, saying, hey, look at this ad.
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Chapter 8: What predictions are made for the future of advertising with AI?
Doesn't that make us look like we're really on the cutting edge? I think when you stack ads up one after the other like it is in the Super Bowl, everyone's very well aware of maybe it doesn't look so good.
Yorgos Anthimos directing a beautiful black and white spot starring Emma Stone and then right afterwards you put something AI produced, it's going to be really clear that it's not quite holding up creatively.
Katie, why are companies turning to AI to make ads in the first place?
Cost is pretty much it. The amount of money it does take to produce a 30-second ad is a lot. The location, the actors, the amount of times they have to rerun the same line, the catering, all of that adds up in a way that it adds up for a Hollywood production. If an agency can come along and go, you know what, we're just going to do that on a computer, they can save so much money.
Anything that can demonstrate at the moment to shareholders that a company knows what it's doing, I think is a good investment.
But even companies that I think of that spend a lot of money on advertising, like Coca-Cola, they're doing this. And Katie, I'm wondering, is this actually effective to make an ad with AI?
Like, do people like it? It depends who you ask. Everyone who thinks of themselves as a little bit creative hates this. And I'm 100% certain that's going to change soon. And we are not as smart as we think we are, and we are going to be seeing things that are AI, and we don't realize it very soon.
With the Coca-Cola ad that came out at Christmas time, it actually tested very well with normal audiences. However, it's very important to point out it was using creative that we've all seen before. we're nostalgic for, and it's got that music, it had the holidays are coming music. So up until now, I think it can be used to remind people of ads that have come before.
We haven't really seen AI ads that have done something like completely original that people have loved yet. And in the Super Bowl, one of the advertisers that is doing what they are calling the first predominantly AI-generated ad this year, which is the vodka brand Svedka, they're using a character which is a fembot robot, which has existed already.
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