Svedka's AI 2026 Super Bowl Ad Is Freaking Us Out
Svedka just released its 2026 Super Bowl ad, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, and it's an eerie watch. It features a return of the brand's trade character, the dancing, vodka-drinking creation known as Fembot. The character returned last fall after a decade-long break. Now, she's going to the big game, powered by A.I.
In the ad, titled "Shake Your Bots Off," the shapely robot and her masculine android companion shake and drink vodka cocktails while dancing to a techno remix of Rick James' "Superfreak." People shuffle soullessly in the background, often keeping distance from one another like it's early 2020s social distancing all over again. At one point, a person lying on a couch in the background kicks a pillow that squirts out something resembling blood.
The YouTube description is even written from the robot character's point of view, complete with unnecessary emojis punctuating each line like an A.I.-written LinkedIn article. The text also includes Fembot's agenda: "More Fun. More dancing. More human connection. More cocktails." Nothing says "More human connection" like A.I.-generated automatons dancing like they're sad, alone, and already suffering from the poorly reviewed vodka's notorious hangovers.
Who made the Svedka AI ad?
A.I. firm Silverside created Svedka's Super Bowl ad, alongside chief marketing officer Sara Saunders and the rest of the marketing team at Sazerac, Svedka's parent company (which also distills Costco's Kirkland-brand bourbon). Fembot's choreography was the result of a competition hosted on TikTok and won by Nashville-based dancer Jessica Rizzardi. The victory came with a $10,000 prize, and the company then trained the A.I.-generated robot to learn Rizzardi's moves. Typically, an animated character like this would require the dancer to don a motion capture suit, but in this case, Silverside made an A.I. model learn the choreography over time.
This TikTok-based strategy is a cheap way for the brand to get attention on social media, even if the competition (which saved the company the cost of hiring a professional choreographer for a nationally televised commercial) came with a hefty cash prize. Silverside is best known for its widely panned Coca-Cola holiday ads in 2024 and 2025. Unlike Coke's 2023 holiday commercial that was inspired by "The Bear," the company's 2025 A.I.-generated ad removed any humans from the original 2024 version, seemingly due to the technology's struggle to create people that look natural on screen.