Picture this. It’s a Sunday evening. You’re huddled around a TV with friends, neighbors and family eating dips and wings, and enjoying one of America’s most treasured pastimes: the Super Bowl. For many viewers, myself included, the commercials are just as much a part of the Super Bowl experience as the game itself. In fact, 42% of Americans tune in specifically for the amusing ads. But this year, I found myself wondering when Super Bowl commercials stopped being fun and started feeling like a sales pitch for everything wrong with modern culture.
The 2026 Super Bowl ads didn’t just miss the mark; they felt dystopian.
“My takeaway from the Super Bowl ads is that the American economy is being propped up by AI, weight loss drugs, cryptocurrency and gambling,” Axios reporter Andrew Solender posted on X.
He’s right.
The most concerning trend in ads this year was AI. Whether it was the Ring commercial where AI helps find a lost dog using neighborhood cameras, Google’s ad showing Gemini helping a family imagine their future home, the Amazon Alexa commercial featuring Chris Hemsworth joking about AI or the Meta ad promoting AI smart glasses, AI was everywhere.
These ads romanticized AI as the solution to nearly every problem. They presented the technology as helpful and unavoidable, all while appearing to be willfully ignorant of the many problems that come with AI adoption, such as invasions of privacy, job loss and a growing intellectual and emotional dependency on technology. AI may shape the future, but the frequency at which advertisers are asking viewers to embrace this new technology is jarring.
Indeed, almost a quarter of this year’s Super Bowl ads were produced with or featured AI, making it impossible for viewers to escape. Almost all of these AI ads ranked near the bottom of the USA Today’s Ad Meter ranking, suggesting that watchers were not impressed by these AI ads. This is a huge disconnect. Companies may believe AI is the future they need to sell, but viewers still want to laugh, have fun and watch authentic commercials.
The amount of weight-loss drug advertisements also contributed to the uneasy tone many viewers felt this year. Several ads promoted GLP-1 medications. Serena Williams even endorsed one product. While these medications can serve legitimate medical purposes, marketing them at the Super Bowl with a celebrity cameo walks the line between real treatment and a cash grab from power-hungry health companies promoting prescription drugs as a lifestyle solution.
America loves a quick fix!
Then there were the gambling commercials encouraging viewers to download apps and bet before the kickoff whistle even blew. One online sports betting and casino app, Fanatics Sportsbook, ran an ad featuring Kendall Jenner. After the game, the company’s CEO celebrated a “spike” in downloads, which is concerning. Framing gambling as part of the viewing experience normalizes an addictive and risky habit.
Lighthearted beer ads and funny commercials have been replaced with AI, prescription drugs and gambling campaigns. The 2026 Super Bowl advertisements left viewers more exhausted than entertained by preying on our addictions, tempting us with “quick fix” drugs and encouraging AI dominance. I can’t help but wonder which of America’s cravings will be capitalized upon in next year’s ads.
