🏈 Super Bowl LX: When AI Took Over America's Biggest Stage 🤖
From Anthropic vs OpenAI ad wars to AI-powered instant replay, Super Bowl LX was the most AI-saturated championship game in history. Here's everything that went down.
🏟️ The Big Game Just Got a Whole Lot Smarter
Super Bowl LX is in the books, and wow — what a day for AI 🤯
The Seattle Seahawks demolished the New England Patriots 29-13 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, but honestly? The real battle wasn't on the field. It was in the commercial breaks. And the broadcast booth. And the stadium infrastructure. And basically everywhere you looked 👀
Let's break it all down 👇
🦅 The Game Itself
Seattle Seahawks 29 🆚 New England Patriots 13
Kenneth Walker III went absolutely nuclear 🔥 — 27 carries, 135 rushing yards, 2 catches for 26 yards — earning Super Bowl MVP and becoming the first running back to win the award since Terrell Davis in 1997. That's a 27-year drought for RBs 😤
📊 Key Stats
| Stat | Seahawks | Patriots |
|---|---|---|
| Final Score | 29 | 13 |
| Sacks | 6 | 1 |
| Turnovers Forced | 3 | 0 |
| Field Goals | 5 (Jason Myers 🦵) | 2 |
Sam Darnold — yes, THAT Sam Darnold — the guy who famously "saw ghosts" 👻 with the Jets — just won a Super Bowl with his fifth team in eight years. From ghost-seer to ghostbuster. You literally cannot script this 🎬
🤖 The AI Ad Wars: Claude vs ChatGPT vs Everyone
This was it. The year AI companies went all-in on the Super Bowl 💰💰💰
Ad spots averaged a record $8 million for 30 seconds. Some hit $10 million+. And AI brands were EVERYWHERE.
🟠 Anthropic's Claude — "Ads Are Coming to AI. But Not to Claude."
Anthropic made their Super Bowl debut with a brilliantly savage campaign 🔪
Their ads — titled "Betrayal," "Deception," "Treachery," and "Violation" — showed a fictional chatbot inserting hilariously inappropriate ads into personal conversations:
- 👨 Guy asks AI how to talk to his mom → 💀 Gets served a cougar-dating ad
- 💪 Guy asks about building a six-pack → 📏 Gets an ad for height-boosting insoles
- 175+ Sony cameras deployed across the entire production
- First championship use of the NFL's virtual measurement system 📐
- Zebra Technologies RFID wearables + Hawk-Eye video tools for replay
- Visual AI now synchronizes multi-angle video, automates ball positioning with inch-level precision, and delivers replay conclusions in seconds instead of minutes ⚡
- Sony's new NFL coach headsets — deployed across all 32 teams since the start of the 2025 season 🎧
- Nearly 1,500 Wi-Fi 7 access points throughout Levi's Stadium 📶
- 5G distributed antenna system powering cashierless concession stands 🛒
- An estimated 35+ terabytes of fan-uploaded content during the event 🤳
- A temporary cyber command center inside the stadium monitoring network activity 🛡️
- Next Gen Stats chips in shoulder pads and footballs turn stadiums into "virtual biomechanics laboratories" 🧬
- The "Digital Athlete" program simulated 10,000 seasons to model how the dynamic kickoff rule would affect concussion rates 🧠
- AI video analysis identified the hip drop tackle as a mechanism for high ankle sprains — banning it led to a ~25% reduction in lower extremity injuries 📉🎉
- An estimated 75% of NFL teams now use AI in weekly prep 📋
- The Las Vegas Raiders hired an actual "AI coordinator" — predicting a team will win a Super Bowl "utilizing AI at a very high rate" in the near future 🔮
- 🤑 AI companies are spending tens of millions to win public trust
- ⚔️ The Anthropic vs OpenAI rivalry has gone fully mainstream
- 🏟️ AI is quietly revolutionizing how the game is played, officiated, and broadcast
- 😩 The public is already showing signs of AI fatigue in advertising
- 🔬 The most impactful AI applications are the ones nobody sees — player safety, instant replay, stadium security
The message? Claude will never do this to you. No ads. Ever. Period ✋
Created by agency Mother, with CCO Felix Richter saying: "We're using advertising's biggest stage to ask a simple question: does it belong everywhere?"
Absolute masterclass in using the medium to critique the medium 🧠✨
🟢 OpenAI's Codex — "You Can Just Build Things"
OpenAI came back for round two with a 60-second first-quarter spot focused on Codex, their coding assistant 💻
The ad traced the journey from childhood curiosity to AI-assisted creation — shot with real people on actual film 🎞️. OpenAI reportedly spent around $14 million on their Super Bowl presence.
CMO Kate Rouch: "People are actually the hero" 🦸
😤 The Beef
Oh, it got spicy 🌶️
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called Anthropic's ads "funny" but "clearly dishonest" and "deceptive," claiming OpenAI would "obviously never run ads" the way Anthropic depicted. He also took a shot saying "Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people."
Anthropic's president fired back on Good Morning America defending their message 📺
The tech press went absolutely feral covering the beef 🍿 — CNN, CNBC, TechCrunch, you name it.
🎯 Other AI Ads That Hit Different
| Brand | The Vibe |
|---|---|
| Showed their "Nano Banana Pro" image-gen model helping a mom and son design their new home 🏠 | |
| 📦 Amazon (Alexa+) | Chris Hemsworth vs. a scheming AI assistant plotting against him 😂🔨 |
| 🕶️ Meta | Oakley smart glasses with Marshawn Lynch & Spike Lee 🎬 |
| ⚡ Genspark | Matthew Broderick encouraging "Super Sick Monday" — let AI handle your work 🤒🤖 |
| 💳 Ramp | Kevin from The Office clones himself with AI spend management 📊 |
| 🔔 Ring | AI-powered "Search Party" for lost pets 🐕 |
Honestly reminiscent of the crypto ad explosion at Super Bowl LVI in 2022. We all remember how that turned out... 📉
🧪 AI Under the Hood: The Tech You Didn't See
The stuff happening behind the scenes was arguably more impressive than the ads 🔬
📹 Broadcast Tech
📡 Stadium Infrastructure
🏥 Player Health & Safety
This is where AI is genuinely changing the game:
🎤 The Halftime Show
Bad Bunny became the first Latino solo artist to headline the Super Bowl halftime show and the first to perform almost entirely in Spanish 🇵🇷🔥
Guest performers included Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, with appearances from Cardi B, Karol G, Young Miko, Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, and more 🌟
Fun fact: Patriots coach Mike Vrabel blared Bad Bunny over the speakers for 15 minutes during Friday practice to prepare his players for the extended halftime environment 😂🎵
🏆 The Bigger Picture
Super Bowl LX wasn't just a football game. It was a cultural snapshot of where we are with AI in early 2026:
The question isn't whether AI belongs in sports anymore. It's everywhere in sports. The real question is: who's doing it right? 🤔
One thing's for sure — Sam Darnold doesn't see ghosts anymore. Maybe the AI scared them away 👻➡️🤖
Go Hawks 🦅