Microsoft is returning to the Super Bowl after four years with a spot that promotes Microsoft Copilot, its AI platform that assists people with everyday tasks. Panay Films worked on the commercial, which focuses on how Microsoft's AI could help people create, learn and grow. 

The Super Bowl spot is meant to be almost a “battle cry” against limits on human endeavors, according to Brian Klugman, Panay Films’ head of creative, who directed the commercial alongside Bradley Stonesifer and David Palmer. Palmer also directed Microsoft's first Super Bowl ad in 2014.

The commercial is set to the song “Watch Me” by The Phantoms. It begins with a person driving, and a super appears on the screen with a series of messages: “They say I will never open my own business,” followed by “They say I will never make my own movie,” and then: “They say I’m too old to learn something new or too young to change the world.”

Also read: How AI is influencing Super Bowl creative

The narrative flips, as the beat to the song drops with the line, “But I say, watch me.” The characters are then seen using Microsoft’s Copilot to code, learn chemistry and generate AI images. At the end of the commercial, the Copilot logo flashes on the screen with the lines: “Your everyday AI companion” and “Anyone. Anywhere. Any device.”

Microsoft last appeared in the Big Game in 2020, when it worked with McCann on a spot that highlighted the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl game, Katie Sowers, formerly of the San Francisco 49ers. 

“The Super Bowl is big, and we use it for big things,” said Kathleen Hall, chief brand officer at Microsoft. “AI and its role in what’s going on right now is pretty big. So we felt like it was time to come out and make a statement.”

The 60-second spot will air during the fourth quarter of the game on CBS, and there are social elements on TikTok, Meta, and X. There also will be a search component, directing people to the ad on Bing, Google and YouTube.

In November, Microsoft began the rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which costs $30 a month for customers to use the AI assistant across Microsoft’s suite of products, including Word, OneNote, Teams, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel.

Last year, Microsoft made a statement about its AI-focused future when it invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Last month, Microsoft topped a $3 trillion market value for the first time. It is the second-most valuable company globally, just behind Apple.

Microsoft’s target audience for the Super Bowl campaign is the “AI optimist,” a cohort the company identified through market research, Hall said.

“The core insight was, while you hear a lot of negativity about AI, there's a big, giant group of people out there, that are like, ‘I'm pretty optimistic about this, and I want to know more,'” Hall said.

It was also important for the ad to focus on everyday uses of AI rather than corporate messaging the average consumer might not relate to, Hall said.

“It’s not that it’s artificial intelligence, it’s really an enhanced intelligence,” co-director Klugman said. “It’s like what happens when you enter this thing into the equation that enables you to be better, that enables you to go further.”

While conversations about the Super Bowl spot began in November, Panay Films and Microsoft’s internal marketing team worked with the Copilot engineering team for more than seven months while the product was being developed to discuss positioning and messaging, Hall said. 

Although Panay is known for creating films and more Hollywood-style work, such as a Super Bowl ad for T-Mobile this year, Hall said that’s only part of Panay’s story. “It’s so funny to have [Panay Films] positioned as a Hollywood company,” Hall said. Splashy spots might “happen at the end, but in between, they’re like McKinsey.”

Microsoft doesn’t have a lead agency, Hall said, but historically it has worked with McCann and Panay Films as part of its roster. The idea for a Super Bowl commercial was brought to both agencies. 

“There were good options to choose from both [agencies], we just felt for what we were doing the Panay Films idea landed our position as well as [communicated] a desire to try the product, which is what the goal was,” Hall said.

McCann declined to comment. 

Panay Films has worked with Microsoft since 2012.

Hall said the success of the spot will be measured by brand perception, awareness, and how users experience Copilot following the ad’s run.

Other brands will also promote AI tools during the Big Game, too. Google will showcase the AI capabilities of its Pixel 8 phone in its commercial. Etsy will air an ad highlighting Gift Mode, a service that blends generative AI, machine learning and human curation to surface relevant gifts.