AI Super Bowl Ads Harken Back to the Dot-Com Era. Don't Expect the Same Outcome. -- Barrons.com

Dow Jones
Feb 10

By Adam Levine

The 2000 Super Bowl saw the St. Louis Rams win a thrilling game that came down to the last play, but in tech it is best remembered for the plethora of ads for dot-com companies that didn't survive the eventual stock market crash, which began two months later. Fast-forward 26 years, and Super Bowl 60 could be best remembered for the wave of artificial-intelligence ads.

In early 2000, having ".com" in a company's name was a ticket to success, and several early-stage companies decided to use over $2 million of their limited cash on a 30-second Super Bowl spot. Perhaps the most remarkable spot came from OnMoney.com, a site that promised to put all your finances into one web-based interface. There was one problem: the company didn't yet have a functional website when the commercial aired.

OnMoney closed shop shortly thereafter, and in 2026 there is no website at that address. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, peaked shortly after the Super Bowl aired, before crashing 51% by the end of the year.

This year's wave of ads, while notable for its furtherance of AI hype, is unlikely to bring the same kind of fallout.

Unlike in 2000, many of the 2026 ads came from megacaps like Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Amazon.com, or very well-funded start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic.

One ad did stand out, from a $1.6 billion start-up named Genspark, which promises to automate business workflows for apps like Microsoft 365 and the competing office suite from Google. Both Microsoft and Google sell similar AI tools integrated into their software. Genspark raised $300 million in January; it just spent $8 million on a 30-second ad featuring Matthew Broderick.

Genspark is hoping to do what Monster.com accomplished in 1999, when it aired a highly-regarded ad that put it on the map as a top resource for job-seekers. It was the success of that Super Bowl commercial that led to the 2000 dot-com ad rush. But even though Monster survived the stock market crash, it was out-competed by other sites like Indeed. Monster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

If, in the near term, the Genspark ad proves as successful as Monster's, next year's Super Bowl broadcast may be packed with AI ads from companies you've never heard of.

Write to Adam Levine at adam.levine@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2026 14:59 ET (19:59 GMT)

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