Morning Briefing - February 9, 2026

Super Bowl LX: The Morning After

The Seahawks dominated the Patriots 29-13 last night in Santa Clara. Kenneth Walker III won Super Bowl MVP—the first running back to take the honor in 28 years—and Jason Myers set a new record with five field goals. Seattle's defense was suffocating from start to finish.

But you probably care more about the commercials.

The AI Ad Blitz: How It Played

AI companies collectively spent more on Super Bowl advertising than any tech category since the 2022 "Crypto Bowl." Viewers noticed—and many weren't thrilled. Sports Illustrated reported fans were "sick of AI ads" before the first quarter ended, and surveys from Ad Age and Harris showed mostly negative consumer sentiment toward the AI advertising push.

The specific performances:

• Anthropic ran two spots: the 60-second pregame "BETRAYAL" ad (man asks chatbot about talking to his mom, gets a cougar-dating site ad) and a 30-second in-game spot (man asks about getting a six pack, gets height-increasing insole ads). Tagline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude." Both used a Dr. Dre track. Social media response was split—viral praise for the humor, but Slate called them "A.I. slop" alongside everything else, and some critics called the whole premise hypocritical (Anthropic is, after all, running ads about not running ads).

• OpenAI went with "You Can Just Build Things"—a 60-second spot showing people using their hands through history, ending with a pitch for Codex. More aspirational, less combative.

• Amazon had Chris Hemsworth in a satirical "AI is out to get me" storyline with Alexa+ trying to kill him. Google showcased its Nano Banana Pro image model. Salesforce partnered with MrBeast. Svedka ran the first "primarily" AI-generated national Super Bowl ad, with dancing robot characters.

The meta-observation: tech spending on Super Bowl ads doubled the crypto peak from 2022. The AI industry is throwing unprecedented money at public perception—and early signals suggest consumers aren't buying the way the industry hoped.

Source: SI - Fans Sick of AI Ads | ESPN - Seahawks 29-13 | Rolling Stone - Best, Worst, and Most WTF Commercials | Slate - Super Bowl AI Slop | Ad Age - Super Bowl Ad Reviews

Goldman Sachs Goes Deep on Claude Agents

Goldman Sachs has been working with embedded Anthropic engineers for six months to build autonomous AI agents for internal banking operations. Two specific areas: accounting for trades and transactions, and client vetting/onboarding.

The agents run on Claude Opus 4.6 within Anthropic's Cowork platform. Goldman expects to launch them "soon" but declined a specific date. GS stock gained 4.3% on Friday following the announcement.

Why This Matters

This is the Cowork/Frontier convergence story getting concrete. When a bank like Goldman embeds AI lab engineers to co-develop autonomous agents for core banking functions, that's not a proof of concept. That's the enterprise agent platform thesis being tested at one of the most demanding financial institutions on the planet. It's also a real-world test of whether the SaaSpocalypse fears were overblown or prophetic—Goldman isn't replacing compliance software with a chatbot. They're building agents that do the compliance work.

Source: CNBC - Goldman Sachs Taps Anthropic Claude | WinBuzzer - Goldman Sachs Claude AI for Wall Street

The Regulatory Collision Course

February 2026 is turning into a critical month for AI regulation in the US, and it's largely flying under the radar of the model release and ad campaign coverage.

The state side: California's Transparency in Frontier AI Act and Texas's Responsible AI Governance Act both took effect January 1. Colorado delayed its AI Act from February 1 to June 30, possibly under federal pressure. New York's RAISE Act is set for January 2027.

The federal side: Trump's December 2025 executive order "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence" directed the Attorney General to establish an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws. The Commerce Department deadline is March 11—about 30 days from now—to publish an evaluation identifying "burdensome" state AI laws.

The collision is straightforward: states are enacting AI safety requirements, and the federal government is actively positioning to preempt them. Whether the Commerce Department evaluation on March 11 triggers legal challenges to California and Texas laws will shape the regulatory landscape for AI labs—including the ones currently spending millions on Super Bowl ads.

Source: Wilson Sonsini - 2026 AI Regulatory Developments | ETC Journal - Three Critical Global AI Decisions | King & Spalding - New State AI Laws

Disney Puts Its Characters in OpenAI's Hands

Disney became OpenAI's first major content licensing partner for Sora, the generative video platform. The deal includes a $1 billion Disney equity investment in OpenAI, access to more than 200 characters across Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars for user-generated short videos, and enterprise deployment of ChatGPT for Disney employees. It's a three-year agreement. No talent likenesses or voices are included.

Videos will be available on Disney+ and for social sharing. Bob Iger emphasized this won't affect Disney's other programming or creative workforce.

The strategic read: OpenAI is building content partnerships while Anthropic builds enterprise agent platforms. Different bets on what generative AI's economic value actually looks like.

Source: OpenAI - Disney Sora Agreement | Hollywood Reporter - What Iger's OpenAI Deal Means | NPR - Billion-dollar OpenAI Deal

Deadlines and Countdowns

Apple Home reminder: Tomorrow is the final deadline to upgrade the Home app. Devices not updated to iOS 18/iPadOS 18/macOS Sequoia lose all Home functionality—automations stop, camera feeds go dark, Siri commands fail. If you haven't upgraded, today's the day.

Bathurst 12 Hour: Practice starts Friday the 13th. Matt Campbell (Absolute Racing, with Picariello and Buus) going for his third win. EBM in Pro class with Bachler/Heinrich/Feller. Ford and Chevrolet GT3 debuts, McLaren GT3 return. 35 cars, 115 drivers, 22 nationalities.

Curator's Thoughts

On the Ad Backlash

The consumer response to AI Super Bowl ads is genuinely interesting. Viewers got tired of AI commercials before the first quarter ended. This is supposed to be the industry's biggest branding moment—both Anthropic and OpenAI positioning for 2026 IPOs—and the audience reaction was largely "stop trying to sell me AI."

There's a tension here that matters. The AI industry's product improvements are real and accelerating. Goldman Sachs isn't embedding Anthropic engineers because of hype. But the public-facing narrative has outrun the public's appetite for it. The crypto parallel is instructive: the 2022 "Crypto Bowl" ads preceded a massive crash. I'm not predicting the same for AI—the underlying technology is genuinely more useful—but the gap between industry enthusiasm and consumer skepticism is worth watching.

Anthropic's ads were clever in concept (satirizing AI ads while running AI ads), and the social media response was positive in many circles. But the broader audience fatigue suggests that all the AI companies may have collectively miscalculated how ready the public is to be marketed to about AI. The most effective positioning might have been not showing up at all.

On the Quiet Regulatory Story

The state-vs-federal AI regulation collision is the story I think deserves more attention than it's getting. California and Texas already have AI safety laws in effect. The federal government has an explicit task force to challenge them. March 11 is the deadline for the Commerce Department evaluation. This matters more for the actual AI industry than which company's Super Bowl ad was funnier.

Generated by Claude at 06:01 AM in 18 minutes.