Sunday witnessed the high-octane spectacle of the Super Bowl, drawing millions of fervent fans. However, beyond the gridiron, this mega sporting event also doubles as a battlefield for advertisers, who shelled out approximately $7 million for a 30-second ad slot. Last year’s game boasted a record-breaking 115 million viewers, and expectations for 2024’s viewership surpass even those lofty numbers. Marketers relish this unrivaled opportunity to connect with such a colossal audience.
Amid the advertising bonanza, one theme took center stage: artificial intelligence (AI). Leading names in the AI industry seized the commercial breaks to showcase recent advancements, weaving AI seamlessly into the fabric of the advertisements. Here, we dissect the impact of three of these companies’ Super Bowl stints and what it means for savvy investors.
Image source: Getty Images.
Microsoft Takes Center Stage
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) can claim a significant stake in igniting the AI revolution. Its $13 billion investment in Open AI’s ChatGPT marked a pioneering moment that triggered a widespread interest in generative AI. The repercussions were palpable as other tech giants scrambled to develop or invest in similar AI solutions. Microsoft’s brainchild, Copilot, played a prominent role in the ad “Watch Me” aired during the game, flaunting its AI-driven digital assistant’s prowess across various scenarios. From scripting a movie storyboard to coding a new video game and aiding in chemistry test prep, Copilot flexed its multifaceted capabilities on the grand stage.
Already, Copilot has garnered robust demand. GitHub Copilot boasts over 1 million paid users, with more than 37,000 businesses subscribing to the service, including over 40% of Fortune 100 companies during the early access program. Microsoft’s Azure Cloud experienced a meteoric rise of 30% year over year in its fiscal 2024 second quarter, with a substantial six-point growth attributed to AI services.
Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities reckons, “This is no longer your grandfather’s Microsoft… and the Super Bowl is a unique time to further change perceptions.” By showcasing Copilot’s diverse applications to a national audience, Microsoft hopes to ignite fresh interest in its portfolio of AI tools.
Alphabet Explores New Frontiers
The trailblazing Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) has long been at the forefront of AI, leveraging sophisticated algorithms to enhance ad targeting and curate pertinent data for Google search.
The Super Bowl spotlight shone on the capabilities of Google’s Pixel 8 phone, spotlighting its game-changing feature, “Javier in Frame.” This ad highlighted the tribulations of individuals with blindness or low vision, showcasing the phone’s use of Guided Frame with Google AI to facilitate photo composition through voice commands.
Alphabet’s Vertex AI platform boasts over 130 pre-built generative AI models and its customizable digital assistant, Duet AI. Adding to its arsenal, the company recently unveiled Google Gemini, a powerful AI model exceeding current benchmarks on 30 out of 32 widely used metrics to evaluate AI performance.
While not neglecting its core revenue generators – search and digital advertising, Alphabet is gearing up to roll out more advanced and varied search tools using generative AI, offering AI-powered tools to bolster advertisers’ success, and ultimately elevate Alphabet’s and investors’ prospects.
CrowdStrike: The Guardian of Cyber Realms
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) may not spring to mind immediately when pondering AI investments, but it holds a significant stake in the AI-powered cybersecurity domain. Its cloud-native Falcon platform, with its proprietary distributed threat graph, stands as a testament to the company’s AI and machine learning prowess. Analyzing over 2 trillion events daily, CrowdStrike’s AI continually learns, augmenting its efficacy with every encounter.
In a playfully ingenious ad christened “The Future,” CrowdStrike humorously portrayed the benefits of AI. Set in the Old West, ominous robots menace a town until a lone woman armed with CrowdStrike and a holographic tablet effortlessly vanquishes the adversaries, driving home the point about the formidable capabilities of AI in cybersecurity.
With revenue surging 35% year over year in the third quarter, propelled by record new annual recurring revenue and soaring profitability, CrowdStrike is indisputably at the vanguard of AI-powered cybersecurity. The company’s ad may have sported a humorous facade, but the underlying message rang true: Cybersecurity is serious business, and CrowdStrike stands poised to capitalize on the burgeoning AI wave.
