Pepsi is making a statement with its upcoming Super Bowl ad by choosing human creativity over artificial intelligence, reported Adweek.
The soda company's half-minute spot, titled "The Choice," will air in the NFL championship game's second quarter. Academy Award-winning director Taika Waititi directed the commercial and plays a therapist in one scene.
The ad features a polar bear, a playful jab at Coca-Cola's famous mascot, taking a blind taste test and picking Pepsi Zero Sugar over its competitor. The bear spirals into an identity crisis after the unexpected result and finally decides to embrace Pepsi as the superior product. The spot uses Queen's "I Want to Break Free" as its soundtrack and ends with a cheeky reference to the viral Coldplay concert kiss cam incident last July.
Challenge over, winner decided: The choice is PEPSI pic.twitter.com/RrcOKUTjoc
— Pepsi (@pepsi) January 29, 2026
The decision to use human talent instead of AI comes as Coca-Cola has embraced computer-generated content in its advertising.
This choice matters for environmental reasons, too. AI systems require enormous amounts of energy to operate. Data centers consume massive amounts of electricity to run the computing needed to generate images and video. By investing in human creative teams, Pepsi's approach has a smaller carbon footprint than AI-heavy productions such as Coca-Cola's.
The ad also references consumer preferences. Blind taste tests that Pepsi conducted in 34 locations in 2025 found that two-thirds of participants picked Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar.
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"If there's something we care about and we believe in, it's in the craft and the creativity of our people, our talent, and our partners," said Gustavo Reyna, Pepsi's marketing vice president, per Adweek. "This time around, we're honing in on those talents and on the craft, and we're bringing the bear to life."
Reyna added that the campaign aims to get viewers to "rethink, reappraise the brand, and to rethink their choice of cola."
People across social media are chiming in after the release of this ad.
"Delightfully devilish," one commenter on the social platform X wrote, referring to the ad's trifecta of using Coca-Cola's iconic polar bear, calling back to the failed "New Coke" experiment, and taking a jab at its controversial AI Christmas ad.
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