The Super Bowl's $80M Message: Why 10 Companies Want You to Think AI Is Normal Now
AI Queens: Smart AF AI Tools, Automation, & Business Tips with Erika StanleyShow Notes
This year's Super Bowl wasn't just about the game or Bad Bunny's halftime show. It was about AI companies spending roughly $80 million to tell you that AI is officially mainstream. At least 10 AI commercials aired, each one revealing something different about where we are culturally with this technology, and where it's headed.
From coding wars between OpenAI and Claude to business replication tools starring Kevin from The Office and Matthew Broderick, these ads showed us that AI is no longer a niche tech conversation. It's a cultural moment. But here's what matters most: we get to choose how we engage with it.
Key themes from the episode:
The philosophical battle between OpenAI's Codex and Claude's ethics-first approach
Business-focused AI tools targeting millennials and Gen X with familiar faces
Emotional AI applications from Google Gemini to Ring's Dog Finder (and the surveillance questions that raises)
Amazon Alexa acknowledging our AI anxiety through humor
Svedka's fully AI-generated commercial and what it means for the future of advertising
The mysterious ai.com launch that crashed from demand
The bottom line: AI is mainstream, but you don't have to let tech bros or big companies define what it means for your business. Stay critical. Stay curious. Stay grounded in your values.
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More from AI Queens: Smart AF AI Tools, Automation, & Business Tips with Erika Stanley
Queens, if you have been telling yourself that Claude Code is for developers and not for you, this one is going to change your mind. Hope Norton spent over 20 years in telecom sales at companies like Verizon and T-Mobile before founding Norton Mobility to help small and mid-sized fleets make smarter technology decisions. She had never coded a thing. Then a former sales engineer sat her down at a Starbucks and told her to open Claude Code and brain dump her idea. One weekend later, she had built Compliance Hub, a tool that is now live on her website and helping trucking companies manage drivers, trucks, and DOT compliance in one place.
Queens, if your AI agrees with every idea you bring it, you have a problem.
Queens, running a business can feel like living on an island. The fastest way I have found to learn AI is to get in a room with other women who are learning, building, and staying curious.
Queens, what would it take for your business to keep running without you in the room?
Rebecca Liao has been building AI companies since 2014, back when getting a computer to understand plain language was still a struggle. Today she is the co-founder and CEO of Saga AI Labs, which turns well-known characters from games, sports, and consumer brands into AI agents that talk with fans around the clock. Before Saga, she led growth at a SoftBank-backed unicorn and co-founded a crypto company that grew to about $5 billion in annual volume.