Inside OpenAI’s $14 million Super Bowl debut
OpenAI just made its Super Bowl debut with a 60-second spot that positions AI alongside humanity's greatest innovations.
The commercial traces humanity's technological evolution through a distinctive pointillism-inspired animation style, transforming abstract dots into iconic images of progress a from early tools like fire and the wheel to modern breakthroughs like DNA sequencing and space exploration. It culminates with modern AI applications, showing ChatGPT handling everyday tasks like drafting business plans and language tutoring. The ad cost roughly $14 million for the first-half placement.
The commercial, developed under new CMO Kate Rouch, deliberately avoids mentioning AGI or superintelligence, which are at the core of OpenAIas mission. Instead, it focuses on practical applications. We want the message to feel relevant to the audience that is watching the Super Bowl, which includes tens of millions of people who have no familiarity with AI," Rouch tells The Verge, noting there should be about 130 million people watching.
While OpenAI's text-to-video AI Sora was used during conception to rapidly prototype ideas and explore different camera treatments, the final …