How AI Is Reshaping the Advertising Industry

Summary

WSJ What’s News – “How AI Is Reshaping the Advertising Industry”
Original Air Date: February 8, 2026
Host: Alex Osola
Guests: Katie Dayton and Suzanne Vernica, WSJ Advertising Journalists

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Episode Overview

This episode of “What’s News Sunday” dives into the visible and subtle ways artificial intelligence is reshaping the advertising industry, with a special focus on how these changes are coming to the forefront during Super Bowl Sunday—advertising’s biggest night. Host Alex Osola interviews Wall Street Journal reporters Katie Dayton and Suzanne Vernica to explore:

• The emergence and impact of AI companies as Super Bowl advertisers,
• How, where, and why AI is being used in creating commercials,
• The broader impact on creatives, agencies, and industry structure,
• What to watch for in today’s crop of Super Bowl ads.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. AI’s Spotlight at the Super Bowl

• Rise of AI Company Ads [02:41]
  • 2026 marks a pivotal year as AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Microsoft (Copilot) buy Super Bowl ad slots.
  • 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.” [02:41]
  • AI giants are engaged in a “death match” for user mindshare, using massive audiences to build brand recognition.
• The Value & Competition for Creativity [03:34]
  • Super Bowl ads must stand out to avoid backlash or obscurity.
  • Companies rely on star power: “So there's a big competition on whose are gonna be the most creative. And that's why you see lots of companies putting multiple celebrities, hoping that helps them stick out.” – Suzanne Vernica [03:36]

2. Is AI Making the Ads Themselves?

• Current Uses — Mostly Behind the Scenes [04:01]
  • AI is predominantly used for research, briefing, and production assistance, not main ad creation.
  • On using AI for ad visuals: “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.” – Suzanne Vernica [04:01]
• Experimentation & Limitations [04:27]
  • When AI-produced ads are made, companies heavily promote the “AI-generated” aspect to highlight innovation, but the results still lag behind top creative (e.g., “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 not quite holding up creatively.” – Katie Dayton [04:35])

3. Why Are Companies Turning to AI for Ads?

• To Cut Costs and Satisfy Shareholders [05:06]
  • Large sums are at stake — up to $8 million per 30-second slot, plus production costs.
  • “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.” – Katie Dayton [05:06]
• Are Audiences Responding? [05:47]
  • Mixed reactions: Creatives dislike fully AI-made spots, but the general public may not notice, especially for nostalgia-rich content.
  • Example: Coca-Cola’s AI-generated holiday ad performed well due to familiar music and visuals.
  • The industry hasn’t yet seen an AI ad that “has done something completely original that people have loved.” [05:47]
  • Svedka’s “fembot” AI-generated ad [06:46] typifies the current creative use: leaning on established tropes, not inventing new ones.

4. AI’s Expanding Role Beyond Visuals

• AI in All Stages of Ad Creation [08:42]
  • AI manages “grunt work”: research, briefing, storyboards, and creating near-final mockups for review—all to increase efficiency.
  • “There are companies...that have spent the last two years feeding these bots all of their old advertising, all of their brand books...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.” – Suzanne Vernica [08:42]
• Artificial Audiences for Testing [09:43]
  • Agencies now use “artificial audiences”—AI-modeled consumer groups for pre-release testing—speeding up campaigns and cutting traditional market research costs.
  • “They can now do these things called artificial audiences where they can replicate what a real audience might be thinking...that again, saves so much time and money.” – Katie Dayton [09:43]

5. Legal and Ethical Questions

• Transparency and False Claims [08:00]
  • No law requires disclosure that AI generated an ad, but misleading AI visuals (e.g., unrealistic beauty) could have legal consequences.
  • “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.” – Suzanne Vernica [08:00]
  • Industry is in active discussion about these implications as usage grows.

6. Industry Impact and Shifting Agency Landscape

• Consolidation, Layoffs, and a New Playing Field [10:19–10:51]
  • AI is accelerating industry trends: consolidation of agency holding companies, layoffs, less need for big creative teams.
  • “We're seeing a massive consolidation at the holding company level...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.” – Suzanne Vernica [10:19]
  • Smaller, nimble agencies may thrive: “It opens up the playing field slightly, especially when the technology gets a little cheaper.” – Katie Dayton [10:51]

7. What to Watch for in 2026’s Super Bowl Ads

• The “AI Bowl” and Quirky Counter-Programming [11:34–12:51]
  • Suzanne: “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.”
  • Katie: Anticipates bathroom humor as counter-programming, coining the phrase “Pooper Bowl” due to a surprising number of toilet-related ads.
  • “Lowest common denominator.” / “Everybody poops.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Super Bowl’s Role as an Ad Platform:
  “There's nothing better for name recognition in today's world than the Super Bowl Sunday.” – Suzanne Vernica [03:14]

• On AI’s Creative Limits:
  “We haven't really seen AI ads that have done something like completely original that people have loved yet.” – Katie Dayton [05:58]

• On Legal Ramifications:
  “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...” – Suzanne Vernica [08:10]

• On Industry Upheaval:
  “We're already seeing the fallout. We're seeing a massive consolidation at the holding company level...AI is just going to exacerbate them.” – Suzanne Vernica [10:19]

• Super Bowl Ad Humor:
  “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.” – Katie Dayton [11:58]
  “Everybody poops.” – Katie Dayton [12:51]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:41] – Introduction of AI companies advertising in the Super Bowl.
• [03:36] – Why creative quality matters more than ever.
• [04:01] – How AI is (and isn’t) used to make ads right now.
• [05:06] – Why companies choose AI—cost, scale, and effectiveness.
• [05:47] – Audience response to AI-generated ads.
• [06:46] – Svedka’s AI-generated ad example.
• [08:00] – Legal and ethical considerations for AI in advertising.
• [08:42] – AI’s broader integration into production and campaign development.
• [09:43] – Use of “artificial audiences” in ad testing.
• [10:19–10:51] – Impact of AI on agencies, jobs, and competition.
• [11:34] – Predictions for the most talked-about Super Bowl ads (AI battles, toilet humor).
• [12:51] – Light banter: “Everybody poops.”

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Conclusion

This episode offers an in-depth yet accessible look at the transformation of advertising in the AI era, revealing how AI is not only an emerging theme in Super Bowl commercials but also fundamentally changing how ads are strategized, produced, and tested. Creative quality remains the industry’s holy grail, even as costs and operational efficiencies drive rapid AI adoption behind the scenes—raising new legal, ethical, and workforce questions. As Super Bowl ads highlight, the intersection of AI technology, creativity, and audience engagement is only beginning to be explored.

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For listeners interested in both the business and cultural sides of advertising, this episode provides sharp analysis, real industry examples, and a preview of what to watch during the year’s biggest night for commercials.

Transcript

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[Alex Osola]

Hey, what's news, listeners? It's Sunday, February 8th. I'm Alex Osola 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 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 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 Osola]

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 Osola]

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.

[Alex Osola]

You.

[Suzanne Vernica]

You're gonna get 100 million viewers typically, and you can look back in history and companies have launched successfully year after year on the Super Bowl.

[Alex Osola]

Do the ads have to be good?

[Suzanne Vernica]

The ads have to really be good. Cause 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 that's why you see lots of companies putting multiple celebrities, hoping that helps them stick out.

[Alex Osola]

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.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Hey, look at this ad.

[Katie Dayton]

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 to be really clear that it's not quite holding up creatively.

[Alex Osola]

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 a 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 Osola]

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 Osola]

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 Osola]

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 Osola]

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 biggest 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 Osola]

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 contracting 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 like 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 Osola]

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, I guess.

[Katie Dayton]

Also there's a broad segment of people watching. Lowest common denominator.

[Alex Osola]

Everybody poops, right?

[Katie Dayton]

Yeah, everybody poops.

[Alex Osola]

Wall Street Journal reporters Katy Dayton and Suzanne Vernica, thank you both so much.

[Suzanne Vernica]

Thanks for having us.

[Katie Dayton]

Thank you.

[Alex Osola]

And that's it for what's new Sunday for February 8th. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname with supervising producer Melanie Roy and deputy editor Chris Zinsley. I'm Alex Osola and we'll be back tomorrow morning with a brand new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

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