AI commercials in 2026: what they cost, real examples, and how to get one right
Oct 9, 2026 10 min read
AI commercials in 2026: what they cost, real examples, and how to get one right
By Scott Garrison
In this article
- What is an AI commercial?
- Famous AI commercials and what happened
- How much does an AI commercial cost?
- Do people like AI commercials?
- Who owns an AI commercial, and do you have to disclose it?
- How to make an AI commercial that doesn't look cheap
- AI commercial generator or a directed production?
- Where Goat Sites fits
- Frequently asked questions
TL;DR
An AI commercial is an ad where most of the footage is generated with AI video tools instead of filmed with a camera. In 2026 they run on TV, in the Super Bowl and all over social feeds. What one costs depends on who makes it: from a $15-a-month tool you run yourself, to about $100,000 for a 30-second spot from a top AI studio.182
I make AI-assisted brand films and commercials for a living. Here's what the famous examples actually cost, how audiences react, who owns the result, and how to get one that doesn't look cheap.
What is an AI commercial?
The term gets used for three different things, and mixing them up causes most of the confusion online:
- Fully AI-generated commercials. Every shot comes out of a video model like Google's Veo or Runway. Kalshi's NBA Finals ad is the famous example.1
- AI-assisted commercials. People write, direct and edit; AI generates scenes, environments or characters that would otherwise need a shoot. Most serious work, including ours, lives here.
- Commercials about AI. Most of the AI ads in the 2026 Super Bowl were tech companies selling their AI products, not ads made with it.7
The line blurs in viewers' minds. Dunkin's 2026 Super Bowl spot with Ben Affleck got called AI, but the de-aged cast was reportedly done with makeup, hairpieces and CGI.8 If something looks synthetic, people assume it's AI.
Famous AI commercials and what happened
Coca-Cola's AI Christmas commercials
Coca-Cola remade its classic "Holidays Are Coming" trucks ad with AI in 2024, working with three AI studios.4 Artists and viewers called it soulless. Yet in System1's ad testing it scored the maximum 5.9 stars, the same as the 1995 original.56 The internet and the test audience completely disagreed.
The 2025 follow-up swapped human faces for animals. Five AI specialists sorted through more than 70,000 generated clips over about 30 days to build it.3 It scored 5.9 stars again.6 The Coca-Cola AI commercial is now the clearest proof that craft and curation, not the prompt, decide how these land.
The Kalshi AI commercial
Filmmaker P.J. Accetturo made Kalshi's ad in about two days using Google's Veo 3, generating 300 to 400 clips to get 15 usable ones. It aired during an NBA Finals stream in June 2025.1 The "under $2,000" price tag that went viral covered AI generation only.1 His studio reportedly charges around $100,000 for a 30-second commercial.2
AI commercials on TV and in the Super Bowl
- Google ran its first fully AI-generated TV ad in October 2025, starring a plush toy turkey, a choice that reportedly sidestepped uncanny AI humans.10
- Svedka ran what was billed as the first mostly AI-generated Super Bowl ad in February 2026. Its CMO said the point was to start a conversation, not to save money.7
- Volvo's first AI ad, for its Saudi Arabia relaunch, didn't show a single car. The agency built it around a human story and cut the timeline from months to weeks.11
When it goes wrong
McDonald's Netherlands pulled its fully AI Christmas ad about three days after launch. Critics called it creepy and choppy, and the message landed badly too. It had taken 10 people five weeks.9 Toys"R"Us drew similar criticism in 2024 for a film made with OpenAI's Sora.12 Sora has since been shut down entirely, app and API, which is a good reminder to hire for process, not for a particular tool.13
How much does an AI commercial cost?
| Option | What it costs | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| DIY video tools | Runway $15–$95/mo; Google AI Pro $19.99/mo1819 | Raw clips. You write, generate, select and edit. |
| AI avatar tools | HeyGen $29–$149/mo20 | Talking-head presenter videos |
| Directed AI production (Goat Sites) | Quoted per project, after a strategy call | Strategy, script, directed AI production, edit, sound, all formats |
| Top AI studio | About $100,000 per 30 seconds; some charge around €200,0002 | Big-brand campaigns |
Two things the tool prices hide. First, you pay for the rejects. Kalshi's spot took 300 to 400 generations for 15 usable clips, and Coca-Cola generated more than 70,000 clips for one campaign.13 A Runway Standard plan buys about 52 seconds of its newest model a month, before you throw anything out.18 Second, the subscription is the cheap part. The writing, directing, selection and editing are what make an ad watchable, and that's the work a $100,000 studio fee pays for.
If you want to see what the same spot would cost as a traditional shoot, try the estimator.
Budget estimator
What would a traditional production cost you?
Pick the options closest to what you have in mind. The range updates as you go.
Estimated range
A directed, AI-assisted film from Goat Sites takes 3–10 business days and includes all three formats. Pricing is quoted after a short strategy call.
Rough estimate built from published 2026 ranges (C&I Studios, Vidico). Real quotes vary.
Use this in my quoteDo people like AI commercials?
The honest answer: it depends almost entirely on whether the ad looks fake.
- Craft wins tests. Coca-Cola's two AI holiday ads both hit System1's top score.6
- Looking like AI loses. NielsenIQ's neuroscience study found people spotted most AI ads and rated them more annoying and boring, with weaker memory response.14
- In the field, the best AI ads match human ones. A Taboola study with Columbia and Harvard researchers, across more than 500 million impressions, found AI ads performed as well as human-made ads on clicks. The AI ads that didn't look like AI did best of all.15
- Viewers can't reliably tell. According to System1, 45% of real AI ads were judged human-made, and a quarter of human-made ads were judged to be AI.16
- Labels cost clicks. One study found an "AI-generated" label cut click-through by about 31.5%.16
- Personalized AI video can work. An MIT experiment found personalized AI video beat personalized images by 9.4% on click-through.17
So the risk isn't using AI. The risk is AI that shows: warped hands, drifting faces, choppy edits and a story nobody cared about.
Who owns an AI commercial, and do you have to disclose it?
This is the part most guides skip. It's general information, not legal advice; run anything important past your attorney.
- Copyright. The US Copyright Office says purely AI-generated material can't be copyrighted, and prompts alone don't count as authorship. Human-written scripts, human-made elements, and real creative selection and editing can be protected.21 A directed production with human authorship throughout has a much stronger ownership claim than a raw prompt output.
- AI versions of real actors. The 2025 SAG-AFTRA commercials contracts require specific written consent before using a digital replica of a union performer, and pay as if they performed in person.2223
- Disclosure laws. Since June 2026, New York requires advertisers to clearly disclose AI-generated people in ads, with fines starting at $1,000.24
- Platform labels. Meta labels ads made or heavily edited with its AI tools and can detect AI content from other tools.25
- Fake testimonials. The FTC's rule against fake reviews explicitly covers AI-generated testimonials and people who don't exist.26 An AI "customer" raving about you is the one thing never to make.
How to make an AI commercial that doesn't look cheap
- Start with a story, not the tech. Volvo's AI ad worked because it was about people, not the tool.11
- Be careful with faces. Google chose a plush turkey and Coca-Cola switched to animals for a reason.103 If you use people, they have to hold up.
- Keep characters consistent. Viewers spotted Coca-Cola's trucks changing wheels between shots.3 A custom brand character, designed once and reused, solves this.
- Curate hard. Expect to throw away 95% of what you generate.1
- Lean into the medium. Some of the best-received AI spots are openly playful instead of faking realism.27
- Finish it like a real ad. Music, sound design, color and a proper edit. Kalshi's spot added music in post.1
- Plan for disclosure and ownership before you start, not after legal asks.
AI commercial generator or a directed production?
An AI commercial generator is fine for testing ideas, internal videos and quick social experiments. It falls short when the ad has to carry your brand in front of customers: the generator gives you clips, and you're still the writer, director, editor and sound designer.
A directed production makes sense when the ad represents you on your homepage, in paid campaigns or on TV, and when you need to own it.
Where Goat Sites fits
We build directed, AI-assisted commercials and brand films. Each one is scoped and quoted after a short strategy call:
| Film | What it is | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 15-second brand film | 3 business days |
| My Hero | Hero video for your homepage | 7 business days |
| Brand Spot | 60-second commercial | 10 business days |
| Brand Character | Custom spokesperson or avatar | 10 business days |
That's the gap between a DIY subscription and a $100,000 studio spot. Every film comes in widescreen, vertical and square, written and directed by people, with AI doing the heavy lifting on production.
The Brand Character deserves a special mention for AI work. Once your spokesperson is designed, every future spot keeps the same face and style, which fixes the consistency problem that sinks so many AI ads. Just don't have it pose as a real customer.26
See the films we've made for Mask Dental Studio, Pedal Haus, Firmspace and others on our brand films page, or read the Pedal Haus case study. If you're not sure your website is ready to convert the traffic a commercial brings in, our Authority Scorecard shows where it stands.
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Frequently asked questions
What is an AI commercial?
An ad where most of the footage is generated with AI video tools instead of filmed. Some are fully generated, like Kalshi's NBA Finals spot; most professional ones are AI-assisted, with people writing, directing and editing.1
How much does an AI commercial cost?
What AI is best for making commercials?
Was the Coca-Cola Christmas commercial made with AI?
Was Ben Affleck's Dunkin' commercial AI?
Reportedly not. The de-aged cast in Dunkin's 2026 Super Bowl spot was done with makeup, hairpieces and CGI, though many viewers assumed it was AI.8
Can AI commercials run on TV?
Do I have to disclose that my ad uses AI?
Can I copyright an AI commercial?
Not the parts made by prompts alone. The US Copyright Office protects human authorship: scripts, human-made elements, and real creative selection and editing.21 Talk to your attorney for anything specific.
Sources
- NPR (via MPR News), An AI video ad is making a splash. Is it the future of advertising? (2025)
- Semafor, Mad Men GPT: AI creative studios are drawing investors and consumer eyeballs (2025)
- TheWrap, How Coca-Cola Made Its AI Christmas Ad With 5 Specialists Tackling 70,000 Clips (2025)
- NBC New York, Coca-Cola causes controversy with AI-made ad (2024)
- Adweek, How Coca-Cola's AI Holiday Ad Went From Praise to Rage (2024)
- Marketing Week, You can't dismiss AI ads as slop when they're winning in testing (2025)
- Semafor, First entirely AI-generated ad hits the Super Bowl (2026)
- MediaPost, Affleck Super Bowl spot with sitcom greats (2026)
- NBC News, McDonald's pulls AI-generated Christmas ad after social media backlash (2025)
- 9to5Google, Google's first AI-generated TV ad (2025)
- Carscoops, First AI-generated video ad from Volvo doesn't show a single car (2025)
- Decrypt, Toys'R'Us ad made with AI ignites controversy (2024)
- The Decoder, OpenAI sets two-stage Sora shutdown (2026)
- NielsenIQ, NIQ research uncovers hidden consumer attitudes toward AI-generated ads (2024)
- Taboola, AI Ads That Work: GenAI ads study (2026)
- The Drum, Humans can't spot AI ads. Can AI spot good human ones? (2026)
- MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Personalized AI video ads (2025)
- Runway, Pricing (2026)
- Google, Google AI plans (2026)
- HeyGen, Pricing (2026)
- US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability (2025)
- DLA Piper, 2025 SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contracts MOAs transform in the digital age (2025)
- Davis+Gilbert, Importance of digital replica consents under the SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract (2026)
- Cooley, New York enacts synthetic performer disclosure law for advertisements (2026)
- Meta, Expanding GenAI transparency for Meta's ads products (2025)
- Davis Wright Tremaine, FTC finalizes rule prohibiting fake reviews (2024)
- Muse by Clios, Is ad biz rediscovering its voice in AI's uncanny valley? (2025)
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