Best AI Commercials: How They Were Made (2026)

The best known AI commercials are Coca-Cola’s Holidays Are Coming, the Toys R Us Sora film, Kalshi’s NBA Finals spot, Under Armour’s Anthony Joshua ad, and Heinz A.I. Ketchup. Every celebrated example kept humans in the pipeline. The famous cost figures leave out the people who were paid. At least one canonical entry is not AI at all.

You have probably seen the list. A prediction market app made a national ad for $2,000. Two directors made a Liquid Death spot for $800. The conclusion writes itself: the floor fell out, and anyone can do this now.

The conclusion is wrong. Kalshi’s $2,000 covers the prompting only, and the $800 Liquid Death figure is for a side project.

This guide walks through what each notable AI commercial used AI for, checked against dated sources, and what the pattern means if your budget looks nothing like Coca-Cola’s.

Key Takeaways

• The “$2,000 NBA Finals ad” is not a total cost. Kalshi’s Jack Such told NPR the “actual cost of prompting the AI” was under $2,000. Kalshi declined to disclose the director’s fee, and the director told Business Insider he was “paid very well for the project” (npr.org, businessinsider.com, June 2025).
• The honest Kalshi comparison is an undisclosed director fee plus the prompting cost, against production quotes “in the six or seven figure range” (businessinsider.com, June 2025). A large saving. Not $2,000.
• The most celebrated spots used AI to explore, then paid humans to finish. Google Creative Lab built storyboards with Veo 3, then hired human directors to shoot the final ads (campaignlive.com, September 2025).
• OpenAI’s own Super Bowl ad was made by human artists. Sora only prototyped it. Its CMO called the spot “a celebration of human creativity” (theverge.com, techradar.com, February 2025).
• Airbnb’s “AI-looking” diorama ads are not AI. They are 3D and cel animation by the studio BUCK, with more than 100 credited people (buck.co, thedrum.com, August 2023).
• The model behind the famous 2025 ads has left Google’s Gemini API. Google set June 30, 2026 as the shutdown date for Veo 3, and its Gemini API pricing page now lists only Veo 3.1 (ai.google.dev, September 2026). The canon is already historical.

What counts as an AI commercial?

An AI commercial is any ad where generative models did meaningful production work. In practice there are three pipelines. Fully generated, where the model produces the finished footage. Hybrid, where AI handles exploration, storyboards, or gap-filling and humans shoot and finish. And localization, where one filmed master is adapted by AI into other languages or variants. Most famous AI advertising examples are hybrid, though they get reported as the first kind.

That distinction decides what a given ad proves. A fully generated spot proves a model can hold a shot. A hybrid spot proves AI can do the exploring and the storyboards. For the tooling underneath, see our breakdown of what an AI ad generator is.

Best AI commercials of 2025 and what they really cost

Two 2025 AI spots changed what people expect a commercial to cost, and both were made with Google’s Veo 3.

Kalshi’s NBA Finals ad aired in the YouTube TV stream of Game 3 on June 11, 2025. Creator PJ Accetturo produced it with Veo 3, running 300 to 400 generations to get roughly 15 usable clips. Kalshi confirmed to Business Insider that it was “generated entirely using Veo 3” (businessinsider.com, June 2025). It passed three million views on Kalshi’s X account within a week (npr.org, June 2025).

Then there is the number. Kalshi’s Jack Such told NPR that “the actual cost of prompting the AI, what is being used in lieu of studios, directors, actors, etc., was under $2,000” (npr.org, June 2025). That is the cost of prompting, not the cost of the ad. Such declined to disclose Accetturo’s fee. Accetturo told Business Insider he was “paid very well for the project” and makes “a lot more as an AI director” than on live-action contracts. Media buy is excluded too.

Accetturo’s own caveat is the one worth keeping: “Just because this was cheap doesn’t mean anyone can do it” (npr.org, June 2025).

The Liquid Death spot is the other half of the myth, and it needs a correction before anything else. It was never a Liquid Death ad. Broadcast called it a “fake Liquid Death ad”: a side project written and directed by the duo Too Short For Modeling, with creative direction from Amir Ariely (broadcastnow.co.uk, July 2025). We found no source that says Liquid Death commissioned or aired it.

The $800 in Veo 3 credits is real and sourced. Ariely says the project took about two weeks from idea to finished product (broadcastnow.co.uk, July 2025). Take it as proof of output quality, which it genuinely is. It proves nothing about what a brand pays, because it was a side project.

For what the models themselves charge per second today, we broke that down in AI video generation cost.

What the celebrated AI ads used AI for

In almost every one of the best AI commercials, AI did the exploring and humans did the finishing. The table shows what AI did in five landmark spots, checked against the sources.

Toys R Us went from concept to final in a few weeks with Sora, cutting “hundreds of iterative shots down to a couple dozen.” It still added corrective VFX and an original score (prnewswire.com, June 2024). Director Nik Kleverov was candid about the hit rate: “Sometimes you would create something that was almost right and other times not so right” (cnn.com, June 2024).

Google’s Vanilla spot is the clearest statement of the hybrid model, because Google was using its own model. Creative Lab used Veo 3 to design storyboards, then hired the director duo Matias and Mathias to shoot the finished ad (campaignlive.com, September 2025). The same split runs on a far smaller budget, and our walkthrough of boarding a video ad before you generate it covers the frame-by-frame version.

Under Armour shows what happens when the human part goes uncredited. Director Wes Walker described a pipeline combining “Ai video, Ai photo, 3D CGI, 2D VFX, Motion graphics, 35mm film, digital video and advances in Ai voiceover” (techcrunch.com, March 2024). The production company Tool puts the schedule at four weeks from concept to delivery (toolofna.com, March 2024). Director Gustav Johansson then pointed out publicly that the athlete footage came from a commercial he had directed two years earlier, shot by DP André Chemetoff, with neither credited. He said: “Cool film, But all the stuff with athlete is shot by André Chemetoff and from a commercial I did?” Credits were later added under “licensed footage” (euronews.com, March 2024).

Read that pipeline list again. The 35mm film in the AI-powered ad was the part someone else shot.

The ads that drew criticism, and what they had in common

Two campaigns drew public criticism in the sources below, and they share a trait.

Coca-Cola remade Holidays Are Coming with generative AI in November 2024, built by Secret Level, Silverside AI, and The Wild Card. Reception was, per Muse by Clios, “for the most part, harsh,” with the spot called dystopian and hollow (musebyclios.com, November 2024). Coke ran it again in 2025 with Secret Level and Silverside, where five AI specialists produced more than 70,000 clips in about a month (futurism.com, November 2025). The Verge called the result “a sloppy eyesore” (theverge.com, November 2025).

Coke’s Pratik Thakar defended it on the record: “Last year people criticized the craftsmanship. But this year the craftsmanship is ten times better” (hollywoodreporter.com, November 2025).

Progressive launched an AI-generated spot with animals driving in November 2025, keeping Stephanie Courtney’s Flo voiceover human. Marketing Dive reported that the comments under the YouTube video were negative. It quoted the brand’s counter: “We did get comments about the creative, but we also got really strong engagement with the work” (marketingdive.com, February 2026). Marketing Dive reports that Progressive chose animals over humans on purpose, because animals suit the look of AI video and feel less uncanny.

The shared trait is that AI was pointed at the craft: the warmth, the performance, the thing the audience came for. That is the part people notice being removed. Kalshi used more AI than either brand and was celebrated, so the amount of AI did not decide the reaction. Our guide to images that do not read as machine-made covers the same failure at the frame level, and AI cinematic ad styles covers the looks that survive it. For click data rather than reactions, what the research says about AI, stock and shot ad visuals compares the three sources.

The famous AI commercials that are not AI

Airbnb’s diorama ads are not AI. The campaign is “Get an Airbnb,” launched in August 2023 and animated by the studio BUCK (thedrum.com, August 2023). The published credits list 3D animators and 2D cel animators (stashmedia.tv), and BUCK credits more than 100 named people (buck.co). The stylized look reads as AI to people primed to see AI. It is a conventional animation production. For drawn and modeled work, see the guide to animated ads and how brands make them.

The AI labs advertise with human crews. OpenAI’s “The Intelligence Age” ran at Super Bowl LIX in February 2025, a 60-second pointillism-inspired animated spot via Accenture Song. OpenAI’s CMO Kate Rouch told The Verge that Sora and other OpenAI tools were used to prototype ideas, and that human artists made the final animation. Rouch: “This is a celebration of human creativity and an extension of human creativity” (theverge.com, techradar.com, February 2025).

Anthropic’s first brand campaign, “Keep Thinking With Claude,” ran in September 2025 through the agency Mother, a 90-second film directed by Daniel Wolfe with music by MF DOOM (adage.com, September 2025). The published credits list a live-action crew: a director of photography, a production designer, two editors, a colorist and a VFX studio (shots.net, September 2025).

When two AI labs made their first big brand films, both hired human crews to make them.

The quiet uses that pay

The interesting AI advertising in 2025 and 2026 is not on any best-of list, because it is not a hero film.

Trivago announced Jürgen Klopp as brand ambassador in October 2024. The model was built for repetition: “a master spot recorded in English, which can then be localized into different languages using advanced AI technology” (trivago investor relations, October 2024). It reached nearly 20 markets by February 2025 (skift.com, February 2025). One shoot, many markets.

Klarna used an AI avatar of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski to deliver Q1 earnings highlights in May 2025. TechCrunch noted it was not obvious, with only subtle tells like reduced blinking (techcrunch.com, May 2025).

Google then went the other way. Its Thanksgiving turkey ad in the “Just Ask Google” campaign, on air from October 31, 2025, was its first TV ad made entirely with generative AI. Google Creative Lab made it with Veo 3 and other AI tools, to promote AI Mode in Search rather than Pixel. The ad carries no AI label, because Google believes consumers do not care whether an ad was made with AI (9to5google.com, October 2025).

That was weeks after the Pixel spot built on Veo storyboards and shot by human directors. The same company ran both workflows in the same autumn, which is a fair signal that nobody has settled this.

What this means if you are not Coca-Cola

Almost everything above is a hero spot: one film, big brand, judged on craft. If that is not your job, the canon is the wrong benchmark, and copying it is the wrong instinct. The sports ads guide shows what a small brand can copy from seven famous spots.

The pattern that holds across every sourced example is a split. AI got punished when it replaced craft. It got ignored, in the good way, when it replaced repetition. Trivago’s localization, Klarna’s avatar, and Google’s storyboards all pointed AI at work nobody was going to admire anyway. Coca-Cola and Progressive pointed it at the warmth.

An AI commercial generator earns its place on the repetition. For most brands the repetition is where the money is: the fortieth variant of a product shot, the same ad resized for four placements, the next drop needing what the last drop needed. That work is invisible, unglamorous, and constant, and it never makes a list. For product clips, our six rules for AI product video cover the shot-to-shot checks.

That is the work DesignerBox is built for. DesignerBox is AI creative production for brands and agencies. You build the job once with your brand, your product and your rules, then run the same job on the next product. A saved workflow runs the same way on the next product, so the next drop starts from the setup instead of a rebuild. The Ads from a product photo template and a product video ad template turn a product photo into an ad without a shoot. The Ad in other sizes app turns one ad into four sizes. The video ad templates cover other spots, and a relighting template changes the light on a shot. The first spot is the expensive one. The rest are another run, and the picture, the video and your brand rules stay in one account.

Two things to know before you plan a budget. Video starts on the Premium plan, and an 8-second clip costs 40 to 560 credits, depending on the model, with the cost shown before the run. The free plan cannot make video. It does let you see still results first, on the sample products. Plans and credits are on the pricing page, and the model list shows the image and video models DesignerBox runs.

One more thing worth knowing before you treat any of this as settled. Veo 3, the model behind both the Kalshi ad and the Liquid Death spec film, had a Gemini API shutdown date of June 30, 2026. Google’s Gemini API pricing page now lists only Veo 3.1 (ai.google.dev, September 2026). Google now names Gemini Omni Flash its default video model in the Gemini API (ai.google.dev, September 2026). Google also lists 22 October 2026 as the earliest shutdown date for the Veo 3.1 preview models in the Gemini API. It names Gemini Omni Flash as the replacement (Gemini API deprecations, October 2026).

Two of the most cited AI commercials were made with a model the Gemini API no longer lists. OpenAI removed Sora 2 from its API on 24 September 2026, and what replaces Sora 2 by job covers where to move. Anything you build a process on in 2026 is on the same clock. That is an argument for a process that can switch models, rather than prompts tuned to one. Scaling AI ad campaigns covers a test loop built that way.

Two adjacent breakdowns: the best AI advertising campaigns and, for B2B placements, AI video tools for LinkedIn.

Start from a template, add your brand and your product, and run it. The templates are the place to start.

FAQ

What is the most famous AI commercial?

The most cited AI commercial is Kalshi’s NBA Finals ad, which aired in the YouTube TV stream of Game 3 on June 11, 2025. PJ Accetturo made it with Google’s Veo 3, generating 300 to 400 clips to get about 15 usable ones. It passed three million views on Kalshi’s X account within a week (npr.org, June 2025). It became the standard reference for fast, low-cost AI video, though its widely quoted cost is incomplete.

Which TV commercials are AI-generated?

Several TV spots used generative AI for the footage itself. Kalshi’s NBA Finals ad aired in the YouTube TV stream in June 2025 and was generated entirely with Veo 3. Coca-Cola remade Holidays Are Coming with generative AI in 2024 and again in 2025. Google’s Thanksgiving turkey ad, on air from October 31, 2025, was its first TV ad made entirely with generative AI (businessinsider.com, June 2025; musebyclios.com, November 2024; futurism.com, November 2025; 9to5google.com, October 2025).

How much does an AI commercial cost?

In the best-documented case, an AI commercial cost less than the production quotes the brand received and more than the $2,000 headline. Kalshi’s under-$2,000 figure covers AI prompting only, excluding the director’s fee and media buy (npr.org, June 2025). The useful comparison is Kalshi’s own. It went generative after production quotes came back “in the six or seven figure range” (businessinsider.com, June 2025). It also paid its AI director an undisclosed fee on top of the prompting cost. A real saving, and still more than $2,000.

Which AI model makes commercials?

Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora appear in most of the known examples. Toys R Us used Sora, Kalshi used Veo 3, Under Armour used AI image, video and voice tools alongside CGI, and Heinz used DALL-E 2 for images. Google set June 30, 2026 as the Gemini API shutdown date for Veo 3 (Gemini API changelog, September 2026). Its API now lists Veo 3.1 and names Gemini Omni Flash its default video model (Gemini API video overview, September 2026). OpenAI removed Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro from its API on 24 September 2026 (OpenAI API deprecations, accessed September 2026). The workflow picks the image or video model for each step, and a model is one step in a workflow.

Why do people dislike some AI commercials?

In the best-known cases, people disliked the ads where AI replaced the performance and the warmth. Coca-Cola and Progressive pointed generative video at those parts, and drew negative reactions (theverge.com, marketingdive.com, 2025 and 2026). Kalshi used more AI and was praised. Ads that use AI for exploration, localization, or variants, and keep human craft on the parts audiences came for, rarely trigger it.

Are Airbnb’s ads AI-generated?

No. The diorama-style “Get an Airbnb” campaign launched in August 2023 and was animated by the studio BUCK in 3D and cel animation, with more than 100 credited people (thedrum.com, buck.co, 2023).

Can a small brand make an AI commercial?

Yes, and the realistic version is not a hero film. The repeatable win is product-level creative at volume: video ads from a product photo, variants per placement, the same campaign rerun for the next drop. Around half of digital video advertisers were already building video ads with generative AI as of July 2025 (IAB, July 2025). Start with the work you repeat, not the work you would put on a showreel.

Sources

• Kalshi’s under-$2,000 prompting cost, the undisclosed director fee, the three million views, and Accetturo’s caveat: (npr.org, June 2025)
• Kalshi confirming the spot was generated entirely with Veo 3, the six or seven figure production quotes, and Accetturo saying he was paid very well: (businessinsider.com, June 2025)
• Google Creative Lab building Pixel “Vanilla” storyboards in Veo 3 then hiring human directors: (campaignlive.com, September 2025)
• OpenAI’s Super Bowl LIX spot animated by human artists with Sora used only to prototype, and Kate Rouch’s quote: (theverge.com and techradar.com, February 2025). The Verge’s verdict on Coca-Cola’s 2025 remake: (theverge.com, November 2025)
• Airbnb’s “Get an Airbnb” campaign as 3D and cel animation by BUCK: (thedrum.com, August 2023)
• BUCK’s credit list for Get an Airbnb: (buck.co, September 2026). The 3D and 2D cel animation credits: (stashmedia.tv, October 2024)
• Toys R Us production detail, the shot reduction, corrective VFX and original score: (prnewswire.com, June 2024). Nik Kleverov’s hit-rate quote: (cnn.com, June 2024)
• Heinz A.I. Ketchup made with DALL-E 2 by the agency Rethink: (lbbonline.com, August 2022)
• Under Armour’s mixed AI, CGI, VFX and 35mm pipeline, and Klarna’s AI avatar earnings video: (techcrunch.com, March 2024 and May 2025). The four-week schedule: (toolofna.com, March 2024)
• Gustav Johansson’s credit dispute over the Under Armour athlete footage and the later “licensed footage” credit: (euronews.com, March 2024)
• The Liquid Death film as a side project by Too Short For Modeling and Amir Ariely, the $800 in Veo 3 credits and the two-week timeline: (broadcastnow.co.uk, July 2025)
• Reception of Coca-Cola’s 2024 Holidays Are Coming remake: (musebyclios.com, November 2024)
• Coca-Cola’s 2025 production, five AI specialists and more than 70,000 clips in about a month: (futurism.com, November 2025)
• Pratik Thakar’s on-record defense of the 2025 craftsmanship: (hollywoodreporter.com, November 2025)
• Progressive’s AI-generated spot, the reason for animals, the negative YouTube comments, and the brand’s engagement counter: (marketingdive.com, February 2026)
• Anthropic’s “Keep Thinking With Claude” campaign, agency, director and music: (adage.com, September 2025). The live-action crew credits: (shots.net, September 2025)
• Trivago’s master spot recorded in English and localized with AI: (trivago investor relations, October 2024)
• Trivago’s campaign reaching nearly 20 markets: (skift.com, February 2025)
• Google’s turkey ad as its first TV ad made entirely with generative AI, and its decision not to add an AI label: (9to5google.com, October 2025)
• Half of advertisers already using generative AI to build video ads: IAB 2025 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Full Report, July 2025
• Veo 3 and Veo 2 with a Gemini API shutdown date of June 30, 2026, and Veo 3.1 as the Veo model on the Gemini API pricing page: Gemini API changelog, accessed September 2026
• Gemini Omni Flash as Google’s default video model: Gemini API video overview, accessed September 2026
• The Veo 3.1 preview models with an earliest shutdown date of 22 October 2026, and Gemini Omni Flash as the replacement: Gemini API deprecations, accessed October 2026
• Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro API removal on 24 September 2026: OpenAI API deprecations, accessed September 2026
• The video credit range and feature gating: DesignerBox pricing page (designerbox.ai/pricing), September 2026

Every campaign above was re-checked in September 2026 against a dated primary source or a major publication: NPR and Business Insider (Kalshi), PR Newswire and CNN (Toys R Us), TechCrunch, Euronews and Tool (Under Armour), LBB (Heinz), Broadcast (Liquid Death), Campaign and 9to5Google (Google), The Verge and TechRadar (OpenAI), Muse by Clios, Futurism, The Verge and The Hollywood Reporter (Coca-Cola), Ad Age and Shots (Anthropic), Marketing Dive (Progressive), The Drum, BUCK and Stash (Airbnb), TechCrunch (Klarna), trivago investor relations and Skift (Trivago), and Google’s Gemini API pages (Veo shutdown). Google’s Gemini API deprecations page was re-checked on 2 October 2026 and again on 7 October 2026. Claims we could not trace to such a source were cut. We found Heinz’s 850 million impressions only in award-entry copy, and we found no source that names the model in Progressive’s spot or a language count for Trivago’s.