If you want to know who will win the AI wars, just watch these two ...
If you're looking for a Super Bowl LIX game recap, you've tapped the wrong link. I want to talk about this year's Super Bowl ads, or more specifically a pair of tech-related ads, especially the one that had me reaching for the Kleenex and put the ongoing AI wars into a fresh perspective.
The Rise of Tech Ads
I'm old enough to remember a time when the Super Bowl ads were just about Pepsi, McDonald's, Wendy's, Doritos, beer, and the newest cars. Super Bowl LIX was another reminder that these days nothing drives ad dollars and, perhaps, consumer interest like technology.
Woven in between oddball AI slots like recreating football icon Jimmy Johnson for a simultaneously warm and creepy tribute were a whole lot of tech ads. T-Mobile ran an ad introducing its new Satellite cell service, and Square Space confusingly employed indie actor Barry Keoghan to pitch personal website building.
The Battle of AI Commercials
For me, though, nothing generated as much interest, engagement, and emotion, along with some head-scratching, as a pair of AI-focused commercials, one from Google for the Pixel 9 phone running Gemini Live and the other from OpenAI, plugging ChatGPT.
OpenAI's Confusing Spot
OpenAI's minute-long ChatGPT spot provoked head-scratching. The lack of a voice-over, or color (beyond black and white), and use of pointillism-style dots to create imagery made it almost impossible at first to divine whose commercial I was watching.
One has to wonder if anyone at OpenAI even understands people. The on-screen text says, 'All progress has a starting point.' Okay, sure. Whatever that means.
The ad ends with 'ChatGPT' in a large font, and then the OpenAI interwoven icon.
Google's Emotional Journey
Google's Pixel ad, entitled 'Dream Job,' was sneaky. It grabbed my attention from the start with a refrigerator featuring family shots and a guy clearly trying to find a job.
The whole two-minute spot is heartwarming. Gemini eventually asks, "When it comes to work, what motivated you?" as the images flash back through his child's life right up to her high school graduation and his dropping her off for college.
This is a commercial about AI, right? So why am I crying?! Through my tears, I see that the ad has circled back to showing Gemini complimenting the dad on his answer and telling him he's ready.
Conclusion
Based on these ads, Google gets us, OpenAI does not. And that's why Google Gemini may ultimately win this AI race.
