AI commercials from big brands, and how audiences took them

On February 8, 2026, during Super Bowl LX, Svedka aired a 30-second spot in which its robot mascot, Fembot, and her sidekick, Brobot, dance at a human party. Adweek described it as the first primarily AI-generated Super Bowl commercial.

The robots dance a routine by Jessica Rizzardi, whose TikTok dance won the brand's open call for routines the robots could perform at the Super Bowl. Reviews were cool, and the headline on Adweek's creatives panel called the ad forgettable and said AI is not an idea.

Is AI making TV commercials?

Yes, at every size: a Super Bowl spot, an NBA Finals ad (Kalshi), national insurance and fast-food ads (Progressive, Popeyes) and a neighbourhood pharmacy's imagery are all in the table above. What the cases share is that the idea and the script still came from people, and the AI part replaced a shoot or a CGI pipeline. Svedka's robots suited it because a robot that looks slightly unreal is supposed to.

What TV commercials are AI?

The national TV ads on this page that were made with AI are Svedka's Super Bowl LX spot above, Kalshi's ad during the 2025 NBA Finals (about USD 2,000, two days), and trivago's localized TV ads from December 2023, where AI carried one actor's ad into more than ten languages (details below). Coca-Cola's holiday remakes are widely called TV ads, but the sources we read describe the reaction online, not where they aired, so they are in the table without that label.

Why are there so many AI commercials on TV?

Part of the answer is local TV, where AI made a commercial cheap enough for businesses that never had one. Stations sell the ad and the airtime together: in September 2023 Fox Television Stations rolled out a generative AI ad tool to its local advertisers in 17 markets, after Spectrum Reach and Gray Television had signed deals for the same platform earlier that year (Adweek). The other part is national brands using AI for spots a shoot could not deliver in time or on budget, like Kalshi's.

Are TV ads using AI now?

Viewers think so. In the 2026 Bentley University-Gallup survey of 3,270 US adults (May 4 to 11, published August 19), 79% said they had seen ads in the past 30 days that appeared to be made with AI. Most did not like it: 49% viewed businesses using AI to make ads negatively, 32% were neutral and 19% positive, and 66% of adults aged 18 to 29 were negative. Disclosure did not fix the part people object to most: 62% said AI-created people or voices in ads are unacceptable even when disclosed.

Are AI commercials allowed?

In the US, yes. No federal rule bans making an ad with AI, and the rules on what an ad shows and claims apply the same way. Four that reach AI commercials directly, read on the source pages in October 2026:

• The FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials, 16 CFR 465.2, makes it unlawful to create a testimonial that misrepresents that the reviewer exists or used the product. A generated person can act a scene but cannot be presented as your customer.
• New York's synthetic performer law, in effect since June 9, 2026, requires whoever produces an ad to disclose when it includes AI-generated synthetic performers.
• Pennsylvania's Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act (Act 99 of 2026) was signed on October 22, 2026 and takes effect 60 days later. An advertiser may not run an ad that uses content significantly modified or generated by AI in a way that creates a false impression about the nature, origin or authenticity of what is being sold without a clear and conspicuous label. The label must say the ad contains content modified or generated using AI, appear the first time that content is shown, and run in the same medium as that content. Evidently fictional content, parody and text-only ads are exempt. The state attorney general or a district attorney can sue, and a court can award a civil fine of up to $3,000 plus attorney fees and court costs.
• In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act applies from August 2, 2026: content that is a deep fake must be disclosed as generated, with a lighter duty for evidently artistic, creative or fictional work.

Platforms add their own labels on top, and drug, alcohol and financial ads keep their own rules. This is not legal advice; your own legal team, or MLR team in pharma, decides for your ad. The pharma rules are on AI pharma commercials.

McDonald's Netherlands released a 45-second AI Christmas ad on a Saturday in December 2025 and withdrew it the following Wednesday. NBC News reported that McDonald's said the ad was meant to reflect the stressful moments of the holidays, while recognising that for many guests the season is “the most wonderful time of the year”. The CEO of the production company that made it wrote, in a LinkedIn post she later deleted, that the hours “far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time.”

Generated footage removes the crew, the set and the location. A polished, character-driven AI ad still takes a team weeks of generating, rejecting and fixing shots.

Partly. In its December 14, 2023 announcement, trivago said it used AI tools to produce localized TV ads in more than ten languages, “all featuring the same actor”, the new “trivago guy”, with a voiceover written for each market. The campaign started in Denmark and Canada in mid-December 2023 and reached the US around Christmas. On the same page trivago labels its French spot “AI usage” and its US spot “dubbed”. The announcement does not say the actor or the scenes were generated.

That makes trivago a different case from Coca-Cola or McDonald's Netherlands. A real performance was filmed once and AI made the other-language versions, so viewers were never asked to accept a generated person. It is the narrowest use of AI in this guide.

Progressive's “Drive Like an Animal”, released on November 3, 2025, sells its Snapshot program with AI-generated animals behind the wheel. The idea dated from 2024 and was shelved because it needed a long production and did not fit the budget; a year later, rebuilt with AI, it did. Progressive's VP of integrated marketing, Meghan Walsh, called the difference “night and day” (Marketing Dive, February 2026). The voice is Stephanie Courtney's, the actress who plays Flo, so the voice viewers know stayed real. The spot drew negative comments online, including on YouTube, and Walsh said it also got strong engagement.

At the other end of the scale, Grubb's Pharmacy on Capitol Hill, which dates itself to 1867, apologized in October 2026 for using AI-generated imagery in its marketing (Feed Me). What the case means for pharmacies, and the rules that apply to their ads, are on AI pharma commercials.

Two studies point different ways, and they tested different ads. In December 2024 NielsenIQ showed more than 2,000 people a mix of AI-generated and conventional ads, from low to high quality, and recorded brain activity (EEG) for about 150 of them. Viewers picked out most of the AI ads without being told and described them as more “annoying,” “boring” and “confusing” than the conventional ones. Even AI ads rated high quality produced weaker memory activation. They did reinforce existing brand associations, and NIQ warned of a “negative halo” that could pull down how people see the brand.

A field experiment summarised by the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy found the opposite for a narrower kind of ad. Madhav Kumar and Anuj Kapoor sent more than 21,000 customers of an Indian online retailer a WhatsApp message with a personalized image ad, a generic video, or an AI avatar video whose script was personalized to each customer. The personalized AI videos got a 9.4% higher click-through rate than the image ads and 6.5% higher than the generic video. The authors note it was a single exposure, so part of the lift may be novelty (checked October 2026).

Taken together, a brand spot that viewers recognise as AI-made risks being liked less and remembered less, while a useful message that happens to be generated can still earn the click. For a commercial or brand film, that points to briefs where the footage does not have to pass as filmed people (made worlds, animals, products, stylised scenes), and to testing the AI cut against your current ads before the media budget goes behind it.

Why are so many companies using AI for ads now?

Cost and speed, on particular briefs. Progressive shelved “Drive Like an Animal” in 2024 because it did not fit the budget, then made it with AI a year later. Kalshi's NBA Finals ad cost about USD 2,000 and took two days. The founder of the studio behind Coca-Cola's 2025 ad put it at about 20 people, against at least 50 for a filmed ad of the same complexity. McDonald's Netherlands went the other way, with ten people working five weeks. What moves the price of one is in how much an AI commercial costs, and how Ruminate X makes them is on AI commercial production.