This year’s Super Bowl will be full of AI ads

You can bet on seeing lots of AI ads during the Super Bowl LIX, according to Mark Evans, the executive VP of ad sales for Fox Sports. Evans told The Hollywood Reporter that AI “will be coming like a freight train,” and that some companies have paid over $8 million for 30-second spots during the year’s biggest NFL game. 

While AI-centered ad buys are up, those from movie studios and streamers are down. Speaking to both outlets, Evans said lingering effects of the covid pandemic and 2023 Hollywood strikes are “probably playing into part of that.” In the case of the latter, unions representing writers and actors went on strike in part over the potential that they could lose work and income to AI models largely trained without permission on their own past work.

More than 10 advertisers are believed to have agreed to pay what the Reporter says would be a record-breaking fee for their slots. One ad buyer told Ad Age that Fox had re-sold about 10 slots after dropouts from brands like State Farm, which withdrew from its two slots after the fires in LA. 

Seeing a lot of AI ads this year doesn’t mean that’s what we’re in for forever. After all, the big crypto Super Bowl of 2022 didn’t carry forward to 2023, when there were no crypto ads in sight. But it does reflect our current moment, when AI looks more like an over-hyped bubble than ever.