The era of AI slop is forcing some of tech’s biggest players to rethink their brand narratives. The problem isn’t consumer adoption. It’s trust. Seemingly, these platforms recognize the need to build a better relationship with consumers and they’re using the world’s biggest stages to do so.
Consumer sentiment around generative AI is waning. While 82% of advertising executives believe Gen Z and millennial consumers feel positively about AI-generated ads, only 45% of these consumers actually feel that way, according to recent research from the IAB and Sonata Insights, a custom research and advisory service.
Tech behemoths like OpenAI are taking notice, advertising aggressively in an attempt to alleviate public anxiety. OpenAI will reportedly return to the Super Bowl this year after its debut in 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal. (Read Digiday’s Super Bowl coverage here.) Meta, too, is returning to the Super Bowl in 2026, promoting its Oakley AI glasses instead of the Ray-Bans line it promoted last year.
Tech platforms become brand advertisers
AI platforms are waking up to the fact that they’re not just tech businesses, but part of brand-consumer relationships. Last year, platforms like Microsoft, Meta, Google and others shelled out more than $473 million to advertise their AI-powered offerings, according to MediaRadar. These tech behemoths are trying to upend the current distrust narrative, according to Morgan Seamark, managing partner at Triggers, a behavioral-science-based brand consultancy. Advertising seems to be the way to do that.
“There’s an innate distrust right now because it’s new,” Seamark said, adding “The only way you can avoid that being the narrative is to paint a new one and to overwhelm those negative associations with new positive ones.”
Advertising adds an air of legitimacy to a brand, said Spencer LaVallee, co-founder and creative director at Gus