By Shira Ovide, The Washington PostAlphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., May 14, 2024.
Have you seen actor Matthew McConaughey in a cowboy hat pitching Salesforce AI? The ad hyping Meta’s AI chatbot? Did you hear an AI-sound alike of TV broadcaster Al Michaels reading promotions for Microsoft Copilot AI? AI promotional ads on TV and online spiked in the past couple of months, especially during the Olympics, for Meta, Google, Microsoft and other tech companies, according to iSpot and market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
“This is just the latest iteration of that, with artificial intelligence companies trying to get on the radar of consumers,” Adgate said. The challenge for technology companies and marketing executives, Cook said, is to show specific examples of how AI can help in our lives or work and why one company’s AI is different and better than another’s.
It wasn’t so long ago that many Silicon Valley companies considered it gauche to promote themselves with conventional advertising. There were exceptions, including Apple’s iconic ad campaigns, but the general thinking was the products were so good they could sell themselves.Tech companies “are now among the world’s largest brand advertisers,” said Brian Wieser, who is with the advertising research and consulting firm Madison and Wall.