How Brands Can Influence & Leverage
How Brands Can Influence & Leverage
Publish Date: 2026-02-25 13:03:00
Source Domain: www.forbes.com
Despite recent minor gyrations on the Dow reacting to AI hiccups, just earlier this month the Super Bowl made AI itself more visible than ever to consumers. For marketers, the deeper shift to put into action is how AI now determines which creators and brands get surfaced—and trusted.
AI as discovery’s new gatekeeper keeps coming clearer.
It was the Super Bowl that surfaced that reality with concentrated vigor.
AI drives how we discover, perceive brand and creators’ authenticity
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Nearly one in the four national ad spots—about 23%—was tied directly to artificial intelligence, either as the product itself or as the technology powering the message. OpenAI and Anthropic promoted ChatGPT and Claude to mass audiences. Google and Amazon positioned Gemini and Alexa+ as embedded assistants inside everyday life. Meta showcased AI-enabled smart glasses as experiential technology.
Enterprise platforms appeared just as prominently. Salesforce, Ramp, Rippling and Wix framed AI as operational leverage. Ring emphasized AI as an invisible intelligence layer inside consumer products. In one case, Svedka positioned its commercial as largely created using AI tools.
AI dominated the cultural moment.
But the real shift wasn’t about ad spend—it was about who’s in control of discovery and authority.
AI systems increasingly mediate discovery itself—deciding which creators, publishers and brands get surfaced, cited and trusted. For marketers, the battleground has moved from winning search attention to prevailing in authority.
Where AI Works—And Where Consumers Push Back
That distinction came into focus in a recent conversation with Kayla Castro, Senior Manager of Affiliates and Partnerships at Zenni Optical.
When Zenni leaned more intentionally into AI in 2024, the goal wasn’t automating creativity. It was reducing friction in a category that historically depended on physical try-on.
The first test: AI-generated model imagery.
The response was immediate.
“We quickly found that…
