Super Bowl LX is here, and the commercials are doing exactly what they always do: fighting harder for your attention than the actual game. With the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks squaring off at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, brands shelled out up to $10 million for a 30-second spot, and the results range from genuinely brilliant to “why did you spend that much money on this?”
Here are the standout Super Bowl 2026 commercials that actually earned their multimillion-dollar price tags, and a few that probably didn’t.
Watch: Super Bowl LX 2026 Commercial Highlights
Budweiser “American Icons”: The Undeniable Winner
Budweiser brought the Clydesdales back. Of course they did. But here’s the thing: it works every single time, and this year might be the best execution yet. “American Icons” celebrates Budweiser’s 150th anniversary by pairing a Clydesdale foal with a fallen bald eagle chick, both growing up together through rain and hardship. Set to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” the eagle eventually soars from the horse’s back in a moment that Forbes is already predicting will rank as the most popular commercial of the entire game. Is it manipulative? Absolutely. Does it hit every emotional beat with surgical precision? Also yes.
The AI Wars Come to Super Bowl Sunday
If last year’s Super Bowl was the quiet introduction of AI advertising, 2026 is the full-blown invasion. And it sparked actual drama between tech billionaires.
Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, ran what might be the boldest competitive attack ad of the night. Their spots, titled “Betrayal,” “Deception,” “Treachery,” and “Violation,” take direct aim at OpenAI’s announcement that ads are coming to ChatGPT. The tagline: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.” One ad shows a man asking a chatbot for fitness advice, only to get served a product pitch instead. It’s funny, sharp, and it clearly hit a nerve. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired back on social media, calling the ads “clearly dishonest” before escalating into a full rant that included calling Anthropic “authoritarian.” Over a Super Bowl ad. The tech founder meltdown of 2026 was not on anyone’s bingo card.
Google went the emotional route with “New Home,” using Gemini AI to help a mother and son reimagine their new empty house into something that feels like home, all set to Randy Newman’s “Feels Like Home.” Amazon took a darker (and funnier) angle with Chris Hemsworth playing a paranoid version of himself, convinced the new Alexa+ is actively trying to kill him. Meta pushed its Oakley AI glasses with Marshawn Lynch skydiving, Spike Lee directing, and enough extreme sports footage to make the average viewer dizzy.
The Slate take on all of this? AI companies spending tens of millions to advertise during the Super Bowl has “crypto bowl” energy, drawing comparisons to 2022 when crypto brands flooded the broadcast right before the entire sector collapsed. That comparison might be premature, but it’s worth watching.
Pepsi Steals Coke’s Polar Bear, and It’s Glorious
In possibly the most audacious brand move of the night, Pepsi’s “The Choice” ad features a polar bear (Coca-Cola’s mascot, for those keeping score) having an existential crisis after choosing Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke in a blind taste test. It’s the kind of shameless competitive stunt that only works on the biggest stage, and Super Bowl Sunday is exactly that stage. Pepsi’s marketing VP called it “a bold, challenger-driven way that provokes America to rethink their cola choice.” Bold is one word for it. Audacious theft of a rival’s intellectual identity is another.
The Celebrity Power Rankings
The sheer volume of A-list talent in this year’s ads borders on absurd. Bud Light reunited Peyton Manning, Shane Gillis, and Post Malone for “Keg,” a chaotic wedding scene where an entire ceremony chases a runaway keg downhill to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” It’s slapstick done right.
Uber Eats loaded up with Matthew McConaughey, Bradley Cooper, Martha Stewart, Charli XCX, Kevin Bacon, and Greta Gerwig for a conspiracy theory about football being invented to sell food. Instacart countered with Spike Jonze directing Ben Stiller and Benson Boone in a retro disco battle over perfectly ripe bananas. Ritz Crackers brought Jon Hamm, Bowen Yang, and Scarlett Johansson together for a beach party. And Dunkin’ rolled out Ben Affleck alongside Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, and Jason Alexander for maximum “cringe nostalgia.”
The MVP of celebrity casting, though, goes to William Shatner’s Raisin Bran ad. The 94-year-old Star Trek legend plays a character named “Will Shat” in a fiber commercial that leans into every joke you’d expect, including the moment he looks at a dog and asks, “Is that a Shih Tzu?” It’s dumb. It’s perfect.
50 Cent Trolls Diddy From a DoorDash Bag
DoorDash’s campaign centered on “beef” was always going to be culturally loaded when they tapped 50 Cent as the headliner. And Fif delivered exactly what everyone expected: he pulls out Cheesy Puffs, a pack of combs, and a bottle of cognac “aged four years… or 50 months.” The Diddy references are impossible to miss, and they land in that uncomfortable territory between hilarious and questionable, given Combs is sitting in federal prison following his conviction. Whether this ages well is an open question, but it’s generating exactly the kind of conversation DoorDash was paying for.
The Heartstring Pullers
Rocket Mortgage and Redfin teamed up with Lady Gaga singing Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” for a spot about the emotional journey of homeownership. Toyota’s “Superhero Belt” traces 30 years of a grandfather-grandson relationship through RAV4 models, and it’s the kind of quiet, well-crafted storytelling that works precisely because it doesn’t try too hard.
Lay’s took a similar approach with a tribute to multigenerational family farms that supply their potato chips. It’s a smart pivot from celebrity-driven comedy to something more grounded, and it stands out in a broadcast dominated by spectacle.
The Health and Pharma Wave
GLP-1 weight loss drugs have officially arrived at the Super Bowl, and they brought reinforcements. Serena Williams anchored Ro’s debut ad, discussing her own health journey and 34-pound weight loss to destigmatize the medications. Novo Nordisk went big with a 90-second Wegovy spot featuring Kenan Thompson, DJ Khaled, and Danny Trejo. Hims and Hers returned with messaging about democratizing health care access.
Novartis took a different route, enlisting Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle, Tony Gonzalez, and other NFL tight ends for a prostate cancer screening awareness campaign called “Relax Your Tight End.” It’s a clever enough concept, and having head coach Bruce Arians deliver the medical information gives it real credibility.
Xfinity Brings Back Jurassic Park (And It Actually Works)
In Xfinity’s national Super Bowl debut, director Taika Waititi reunites Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum for a “what if Jurassic Park had reliable Wi-Fi?” scenario. Instead of running from dinosaurs, the original cast is jogging alongside them and taking selfies with a T. rex. It rewrites the film’s entire message about man’s hubris, but it’s genuinely entertaining and arguably the most creative use of nostalgia in the entire broadcast.
The Quick Hits
Sabrina Carpenter builds a man out of Pringles. Emma Stone teams up with Yorgos Lanthimos for a moody Squarespace ad. George Clooney hosts an elaborate banquet for GrubHub. Andy Samberg serenades a deli with Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” for Hellmann’s. Melissa McCarthy dives into telenovela chaos for e.l.f. Cosmetics, inspired by Bad Bunny’s call for fans to learn Spanish before his halftime show. Volkswagen brings back House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” Adrien Brody goes delightfully over the top for TurboTax. And the “He Gets Us” evangelical campaign returns for a fourth year with “More,” a spot about the pressures of modern society.
Salesforce partnered with MrBeast to promote Agentforce, the company’s AI agents platform, with the YouTube megastar teasing that “if you see the commercial, you might become a millionaire.” It’s the kind of cross-platform stunt that either looks brilliant or desperate, and there’s no middle ground.
The Bigger Picture
Super Bowl ads have always been a cultural barometer, and the 2026 edition tells us a few things about where America is right now. AI companies are spending like there’s no tomorrow (and some analysts think that’s a warning sign). Health and weight loss brands are going mainstream in ways that would have been unthinkable five years ago. Celebrity casting is more expensive than ever, though star talent fees are reportedly declining as AI threatens to replace them. And humor dominates the landscape, with about 70% of spots leaning into comedy, according to iSpot data.
The one thing conspicuously absent? Any kind of sharp social message. At a time when the country feels more divided than ever, advertisers are spending their millions to make people laugh for 30 seconds, not think for 30 minutes. Whether that’s cowardice or smart business depends entirely on who you ask. But for one Sunday, at least, the biggest advertising showcase on the planet is choosing vibes over values. And at $10 million per half-minute, maybe that’s exactly what the audience ordered.