Which brands have run AI commercials?
Coca-Cola (twice), Toys"R"Us, Kalshi, McDonald’s Netherlands and Svedka are the AI-made commercials on the record. Each one has its own page below.
| Brand | The ad | Aired | Made with | How it landed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toys"R"Us | Origin Story, a brand film about founder Charles Lazarus | June 2024 | OpenAI’s Sora | Backlash. Ars Technica pointed out the artifacts |
| Coca-Cola | Holidays Are Coming, remade with AI | November 2024 | Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card, four AI models | Called "soulless" (NBC News) |
| Kalshi | A chaotic NBA Finals spot | June 2025 | Google’s Veo 3 and ChatGPT, about $2,000 | Mixed. Business Insider called it chaotic |
| Coca-Cola | Holidays Are Coming, again | November 2025 | Silverside AI, 70,000+ generated clips | Panned a second time (Futurism, citing The Wall Street Journal) |
| McDonald’s Netherlands | It’s the Most Terrible Time of the Year | December 2025 | AI-generated | Comments switched off, original upload removed (Forbes) |
| Svedka | Two robots and a bottle of vodka | February 2026, Super Bowl LX | The first entirely AI-generated Super Bowl ad | Negatively received, per USA Today’s Ad Meter |
The pattern is not subtle. The brands that remade a beloved ad with AI got hit hardest, because the audience had the original in their heads. Kalshi had no original to ruin. It made something loud and cheap, and the internet argued about it for a week.
Do AI commercials work?
As reach, yes. Coca-Cola’s 2024 remake passed 56 million views (NBC News) while people hated it. As brand building, only when the ad is weird on purpose. Uncanny is a choice, not an accident.
- Nostalgia is the trap. A remake invites a side-by-side, and AI loses it. Both Coca-Cola holiday ads were measured against the 1995 original.
- Cheap is a story. Kalshi’s spot cost about $2,000 to make. That number did more for the ad than any shot in it.
- People spot it fast. Hands, faces that drift between cuts, text that almost spells the logo. Viewers now look for the tells before they watch the ad.
- A recurring character beats a one-off. The AI ads that build anything use the same face every week. That is the angle of the weird AI character wave and the characters behind it.
AI-made commercials vs commercials for AI
Most searches for "claude ai commercial" or "openai commercial" are about ads for AI products, not ads made by AI. Anthropic and OpenAI both bought Super Bowl LX spots, and Anthropic’s poked fun at OpenAI putting ads into ChatGPT.
Claude’s paid social looks nothing like an AI commercial. It is people: the Williams F1 team (Claude is its "Official Thinking Partner"), founders on how they build, and creators showing an app they made with Claude Code. The full run is on Claude ads, with Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s in Anthropic’s ad library and OpenAI’s. How ads inside ChatGPT work is in ChatGPT ads.
Is that commercial AI? How to tell
Look at hands, text and the space between cuts. AI footage holds up for two seconds at a time, so faces, logos and products drift from one shot to the next.
- Hands and products. Fingers merge, labels warp, a bottle changes shape when it turns.
- Text. Signs and logos come out almost right. Close is the tell.
- Continuity. A character’s face, hair or clothes shift between shots. Real shoots keep a continuity log; models do not.
- Camera. Endless slow push-ins and drone glides, every shot about five seconds long.
- Physics. Snow that falls up, trucks that float, crowds that move as one.
Searches like "progressive ai commercial", "geico ai commercial" and "trivago ai commercial" spike whenever a spot looks too smooth or a mascot looks rendered. The quickest check is the brand’s own run of ads, side by side: Progressive, GEICO, Trivago, Liberty Mutual, Xfinity, Verizon, Jeep, Liquid Death, Olive Garden and Dunkin’.
AI commercial generators: what one finished ad costs
An AI commercial generator turns a script, a product URL or a prompt into video. Per finished 30-second ad, the tools run from under a dollar to about $11 before re-rolls, and none of them writes the idea for you.
| Tool | What you get | Plans | Per 30-second ad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creatify | Product-URL-to-video ads with stock AI avatars | From $39/mo | $3.3 to $3.9 |
| HeyGen | AI avatars, digital twins and video translation | From $29/mo | $0.75 to $5.5 |
| Arcads | UGC-style ads read by stock AI actors | Not published | Not published |
| Runway | Text- and image-to-video clips for b-roll and visual hooks | From $15/mo | $2.3 to $8.6 |
| Higgsfield | Cinematic AI video with presets, on several video models | From $9/mo | $9 to $11 |
| Kling | Text- and image-to-video with native audio | From $8.80/mo | $2 to $4.8 |
The working for every figure, plan by plan, is on video ad pricing. The clip models underneath (Veo, Sora, Kling, Seedance, Runway) are compared shot for shot in AI video tools for ads, with Kling vs Seedance for the two most used in ads right now. For a spot made the traditional way, see how TV commercial production works and what a TV commercial costs.
What AI commercials mean for your ads
Use AI where nobody is comparing it to something they love: new hooks, new scenes, localised versions, a character that is yours. Do not remake your classic.
- Volume is the real win. Meta and TikTok reward a steady supply of new creative. See why on Meta Andromeda.
- Own a character. One weird, recurring face compounds. How to make an AI mascot walks through it.
- Test hooks, not films. The first two seconds decide the ad. Ad hooks has the patterns that work.
- Keep a human on the cut. Every brand above that got roasted shipped something nobody stopped.
Director by Sprites is a full creative team for your startup. Every Monday you get finished, on-brand video ads, reviewed by a human. You never write a prompt.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI commercial?
A TV or video ad whose footage was generated by AI video models such as Sora, Veo or Kling instead of filmed with a camera. Most still use people for the idea, the script, the edit and the sound.
What companies have used AI commercials?
Coca-Cola (holiday ads in 2024 and 2025), Toys"R"Us (2024), Kalshi (2025 NBA Finals), McDonald’s Netherlands (December 2025) and Svedka (Super Bowl LX, February 2026).
Was the Coca-Cola Christmas commercial made with AI?
Yes, in 2024 and again in 2025. The 2024 remake of Holidays Are Coming was made by Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card with four AI models, per NBC News. The 2025 ad came from Silverside AI.
How much does an AI commercial cost?
From about $2,000 (Kalshi’s NBA Finals spot) to a full crew: The Wall Street Journal reported about 100 people worked on Coca-Cola’s 2025 ad. The tools themselves cost cents to a few dollars per 30-second ad.
What is the best AI commercial generator?
For avatar and product ads, Creatify, HeyGen and Arcads. For cinematic scenes, Veo, Kling, Seedance and Runway. The cost per ad for each is on the Sprites video ad pricing page.
Was the Claude commercial made with AI?
Claude’s commercials are ads for an AI product, not AI-generated footage. Its recent spots feature the Williams F1 team, founders and creators, and its Super Bowl LX ads poked fun at OpenAI putting ads in ChatGPT.
Why do people hate AI commercials?
Mostly because of what they replace: a beloved original, or the artists who made it. The uncanny details (hands, faces, text) give viewers something concrete to point at.
Want ads that look made, not generated?
The brands that got roasted shipped AI footage nobody stopped. Director puts a person on every cut. Director by Sprites is a full creative team for your startup, in private beta. Every Monday you get finished, on-brand video ads, reviewed by a human. You pick the winners. Sprites ships the campaigns.