AI Takes Over Advertising: What's Next for Commercials

Summary

WSJ Tech News Briefing – “AI Takes Over Advertising: What's Next for Commercials”

Date: February 8, 2026
Host: Alex Osoleff
Guests: Katie Dayton & Suzanne Vernica (WSJ Advertising Reporters)

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Episode Overview

On this Super Bowl Sunday episode, host Alex Osoleff is joined by Wall Street Journal’s advertising reporters Katie Dayton and Suzanne Vernica to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world of advertising—especially for Super Bowl commercials. The conversation dives into how AI is being used by both traditional brands and AI companies themselves, the effectiveness and challenges of AI-generated ads, regulatory and legal ramifications, and how these changes are shaking up the ad industry at large.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Super Bowl & the Rise of AI in Advertising

(00:49 – 02:40)

• The Super Bowl is the premier advertising showcase, where 30 seconds of ad time can cost upwards of $8 million, with production costs even higher.
• This year sees AI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft) launching their own ads—dubbed by Suzanne as “the AI Bowl.”
• The fierce competition among AI brands is driven by a “death match for users”—each seeking name recognition and market dominance.

Quote:

"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 making their Super Bowl debut. OpenAI is expected to air a spot. Microsoft is going to be pushing Copilot. So that's a lot."
— Suzanne Vernica (02:59)

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Creativity, Quality, and the Use of AI (Front vs. Back End)

(03:51 – 05:18)

• While AI tools are leveraged for research and production, most Super Bowl ads are still created traditionally due to the creative bar and reputational risks.
• Attempts at fully AI-generated ads are rare on this stage, with creatives fearing the inferior quality compared to top-tier Hollywood directors.

Quote:

"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."
— Suzanne Vernica (04:18)

• When an AI-generated ad does make it, brands announce it loudly to demonstrate innovation, but back-to-back with high-art ads, the quality can pale.

Quote:

"If you have Yorgos Anthemos 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 Dayton (04:44)

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Why Companies Use AI—And Does It Work?

(05:18 – 07:23)

• AI promises dramatic cost savings—reducing expenses tied to actors, locations, and repeated production cycles—attractive to both shareholders and agencies.
• Audience reception is mixed: traditional creatives dislike AI ads, but mass consumers respond well if an ad leans on nostalgia (e.g., Coca-Cola’s Christmas AI ad).
• Brands experiment with “AI-first” spots (e.g., Svedka’s AI-generated Fembot ad), but so far, the best results remix familiar creative tropes, not originals.

Quote:

"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. ... We haven't really seen AI ads that have done something like completely original that people have loved yet."
— Katie Dayton (06:05)

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AI’s Expanding Role in the Ad-Making Process

(08:06 – 09:49)

• Currently, there is no legal requirement to disclose if an ad is made with AI, other than general prohibitions on false claims.
• AI is being used for:
  • Writing creative briefs and other planning documents
  • Producing draft or “boardomatic” ads for internal use or client approval
  • Replacing costly focus groups with “artificial audiences” for faster, cheaper testing
• Major brands feed old campaigns and positioning into AI tools, “training” their bots for eventual creative work.

Quote:

"You can get AI to basically create an ad. It's not going to run on air, but it's something that you can present to a client ... So it's that underbelly that it's playing right now. ... But this technology is improving so quickly."
— Suzanne Vernica (08:48)

Quote:

"They can now do these things called artificial audiences, where they can replicate what a real audience might be thinking. ... So it's really going to change everything."
— Katie Dayton (09:49)

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Impacts on the Advertising Industry

(10:19 – 11:30)

• AI-driven production and research are accelerating consolidation and layoffs among agency holding companies.
• Smaller agencies, less dependent on scale, could seize new opportunities as technology becomes more accessible, leveling the playing field.

Quote:

"We're seeing a massive consolidation at the holding company level. ... AI is just going to exacerbate [existing problems]."
— Suzanne Vernica (10:25)

Quote:

"It opens up the playing field slightly, especially when the technology gets a little cheaper. But industry ... is completely contracting already and it will be interesting to see who comes out as the winners in all of this."
— Katie Dayton (10:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• The “AI Bowl” year: Suzanne Vernica (02:59)
• Comparing creative quality: Katie Dayton (04:44)
• AI nostalgia vs. originality: Katie Dayton (06:05)
• Artificial audiences: Katie Dayton (09:49)
• Consolidation & layoffs: Suzanne Vernica (10:25)
• Leveling the ad agency field: Katie Dayton (10:57)
• Super Bowl ad predictions:
  • Suzanne predicts Anthropic's ad will spark buzz for its subtle dig at OpenAI (11:40).
  • Katie highlights the rise of “toilet humor” ads and jokes about coining the “pooper bowl” (12:05), emphasizing counter-programming to tech overload.

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Super Bowl 2026: What to Watch For

(11:30 – 12:59)

• Anthropic’s AI ad, which avoids mentioning rivals directly but taps into the chatbot wars, is expected to be a talking point.
• There’s an uptick in humor—and bodily function jokes—with brands like Liquid IV and Raisin Bran buying ad spots as a lighthearted counter to technological themes.

Quote:

"Anthropic's ad is definitely going to be one that generates a ton of water cooler buzz because it's this topical moment in the battle for AI users."
— Suzanne Vernica (11:40)

"I tried to coin the phrase the pooper bowl, because we have three ads in ... that all have to do with the bathroom. ... Counter programming to all the techno politics."
— Katie Dayton (12:05)

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Conclusion

This episode provided a comprehensive look at how AI is transforming not just the creation but the strategy, economics, and even the culture of big-league advertising—especially visible at the Super Bowl. While the glitziest ads remain handmade, AI is gaining ground in supporting roles and positioning itself for a bigger future. The next few years may see the industry further consolidate, with both risks for traditional creatives and new opportunities for smaller, nimble agencies.

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Transcript

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[Belle]

Hey, listeners, it's Belle. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. 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.

[Alex Osoleff]

Hey, what's News listeners? It's Sunday, February 8th. Alex I'm Alex Osoleff for the Wall Street Journal. This is what's New 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. 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 Vernica, 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? And what are some of the big takeaways? Katie, let's start with you.

[Katie Dayton]

Yeah, we have definitely seen the ads. We are getting the same 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.

[Suzanne Vernica]

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.

[Alex Osoleff]

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.

[Suzanne Vernica]

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.

[Alex Osoleff]

Is it new that these companies are getting in on advertising like this?

[Suzanne Vernica]

Over the last two years, there's basically been an ad battle that's starting to form. 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 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 gonna get typically, and you can look back in history, and companies have launched successfully year after year on the Super Bowl.

[Alex Osoleff]

Do the ads have to be good?

[Suzanne Vernica]

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 gonna get negative stories the next day or worse, no one's even gonna remember them. So there's a big competition on whose are gonna be the most creative. And like, that's why you see lots of companies putting multiple celebrities, hoping that helps them stick out.

[Alex Osoleff]

And for these AI companies, are they using AI to make their ads?

[Suzanne Vernica]

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.

[Katie Dayton]

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. Doesn't that make us look like we are 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, maybe it doesn't look so good. If you have Yorgos Anthemos directing a beautiful black and white spot starring Emma Stone and then right afterwards you put something AI produced, going to be really clear that it's not quite holding up creatively.

[Alex Osoleff]

Katie, why are companies turning to AI to make ads in the first place?

[Katie Dayton]

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 the way that it adds up for a Hollywood production. If a 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.

[Alex Osoleff]

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?

[Katie Dayton]

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. They're just putting that into a AI generator and getting it to produce an ad around that. So again, it's an example, a trope that's already been used that audiences may say that they like, but we'll see if AI can produce something really captivating emotionally that's completely brand new.

[Alex Osoleff]

Coming up. It's not just the visuals. AI is making its way into the entire process of creating an ad. We get into it after the break.

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[Alex Osoleff]

Companies are playing up their use of AI right now and they're making it very obvious. But is there anything that says they have to indicate that something was made by AI?

[Suzanne Vernica]

There's no law in terms of what they have to say. But there are self regulatory standards like when you do an ad, you have to be honest and you can't make claims. But if you think about AI, there are legal ramifications because if you're a beauty brand and your person that you're showing with the hair is done with AI, then that's actually a false claim. In many lawyers that I've spoken to's opinion. The conversations that are happening at the tops of these companies to figure out as we move into this and we use it, what are the legal ramifications? Where can we get into trouble? And that's what's happening right now before this thing really takes off.

[Alex Osoleff]

Besides making the actual visuals with AI, how else is AI making its way into the process of creating an advertisement?

[Suzanne Vernica]

When you set out to do an ad, you want to brief all the constituents. You want to put out a brief that says this is what I'm looking for. You've got AI doing all of that grunt work right now. You've got AI doing production work. We used to have storyboards. Now you can get AI to basically create an ad. It's not going to run on air, but it's something that you can present to a client or you can get a feel for and you can tweak it and then really film it. So it's that underbelly that it's playing right now. But this technology is improving so quickly. There are companies like Mondelez and others that have spent the last two years feeding these bots all of their old advertising, all of their brand books and positioning so that these things get smarter. And those are the companies when they decide to turn it on and say, go create an ad. You're not going to be able to tell the difference between what's now called AI slop and what looks like a perfectly created spot. We're a little bit away from that at this point. But we're going to get there.

[Katie Dayton]

It also goes back as far as audience research, something that has been the bread and butter of creative agencies. The strategy, the. We spoke to all these people and they told us they thought this about your product. They can now do these things called artificial audiences, where they can replicate what a real audience might be thinking. So they can be testing ads not on real people, but on a good assimilation of real people. And that again, saves so much time and money. So it's really going to change everything.

[Alex Osoleff]

Yeah. Do you have a sense of what it will mean to work in advertising in a world of AI?

[Suzanne Vernica]

I think we're already seeing the fallout. We're seeing a massive consolidation at the holding company level. The companies that own all these agencies, they're contracting at a rapid clip. Creativity in terms of that part of the business had already been in a contract stage. Marketers weren't paying enough for that service because there was a glut of agencies out there. So you've already seen a contraction. You're going to see lots of layoffs. We're already seeing some of this. People will call this an AI led thing. The problems had existed. AI is just going to exacerbate them.

[Katie Dayton]

I think it also means that smaller agencies that have so far played on the periphery in a niche way, they can come in because they don't need the scale anymore of these huge holding companies to be able to go to a client and go, hey, we've got a very strong top end idea for you that you can play with strategy wise. So it opens up the playing field slightly, especially when the technology gets a little cheaper. But industry, like sue said, is completely contracting already and it will be interesting to see who comes out as the winners in all of this.

[Alex Osoleff]

Jumping a little bit from our future predictions to the present, specifically today, Super Bowl Sunday, what are you both going to be watching for? What do you think is going to be an ad that people are going to be talking about?

[Suzanne Vernica]

I think Anthropic's ad is definitely going to be one that generates a ton of water cooler buzz because it's this topical moment in the battle for AI users. And I think even though it's been done very coy without naming OpenAI, I can just imagine that people will see through it and actually this will get people talking.

[Katie Dayton]

I'm going to take the toilet humor approach literally, because I tried to coin the phrase the pooper bowl, because we have three ads in, one of which is national, a couple of which are on regional buys that all have to do with the bathroom. Liquid Ivy, I think, has quite a funny ad involving toilet seats. We have Raisin Bran in the super bowl this year. I think as a counter programming to all the techno politics that's happening at the moment, that will be something that will bring a smile to people's faces.

[Suzanne Vernica]

Toilets are actually very frequent on super bowl advertising, I guess because people actually don't go to the toilet during super bowl because they want to see the commercials.

[Katie Dayton]

I guess also, if there's a broad segment of people watching, lowest common denominator, everybody poops, right? Yeah, everybody poops.

[Alex Osoleff]

Wall Street Journal reporters Katie Dayton and Suzanne Vernica, thank you both.

[Suzanne Vernica]

So thanks for having us.

[Katie Dayton]

Thank you.

[Alex Osoleff]

And that's it for what's new Sunday for February 8th. Today's show is produced by Pierre Biennime, with supervising producer Melanie Roy and deputy editor Chris Zinsley. I'm Alex Osola. Thanks for listening.

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