AI labs may be winning investor sentiment. Consumer sentiment is still a fight. This week we look at the results of the AI Bowl and what the reception of AI ads during the Super Bowl tells us about public perception. We examine a surprisingly strong adoption signal for Codex. And we stretch the imagination — the idea of a self-growing city on the Moon and securing 10 gigawatts of data center capacity.
AI Bowl 2026: AI Takes the Field — and the Crowd Isn’t Cheering
Consumer sentiment sits high on the risk list for AI adoption in 2026. The Super Bowl just gave us a live stress test.
Out of 66 commercials aired, 15 were either from AI companies or explicitly made with AI, according to iSpot. The reaction was far from celebratory.
Meltwater’s analysis found that nearly 50% of mentions tied to AI ads were negative, a level described as “far more critical than the broader ad sentiment during the event.”
Not all AI ads were received equally. The spots that framed AI emotionally — as relatable, self-aware, even slightly vulnerable — performed better than those that emphasized pure functionality. Amazon leaned into humor, playfully exaggerating fears of AI takeover. Anthropic deployed sarcasm, indirectly critiquing the idea of advertising inside AI products. Google wrapped Gemini in a parenting and creativity narrative, positioning the tool as an enabler of human moments.
By contrast, the more direct product pitches struggled. OpenAI highlighted capability. Microsoft’s Copilot emphasized productivity.
The OpenAI–Anthropic faceoff is the most revealing micro-battle of the night. OpenAI drove more conversation volume: 25K social interactions vs 10K social interactions for Anthropic. But Anthropic, with less raw engagement, generated a higher proportion of favorable reactions: 25% of social posts tagged positive vs 16% for OpenAI.
There’s another data point that shouldn’t be overlooked. Meltwater found that brands accounted for only about 1% of total Super Bowl mentions and less than 1% of engagement overall. So far, AI companies struggled to generate positive sentiment in a tightly controlled narrative environment — 30 seconds, cinematic production, $7 million per slot.
We also have fresh data from the adoption battlefield
The chart below is only an indirect proxy for Codex adoption, but the direction is hard to ignore. Anthropic still dominates in sheer enterprise API token volume — no debate there. Yet the growth curve suggests a fast and disciplined counter-attack.
Self-growing city on the Moon
Elon Musk added another layer to the long-term space thesis this week.
He said SpaceX has shifted its focus toward building a “self-growing city” on the Moon — potentially within the next decade. A Mars city, by comparison, would take more than 20 years. The near-term priority, according to Musk, is speed: securing the future of civilization starts with the Moon, not Mars.
Anthropic’s infrastructure ambitions
The company has reportedly discussed securing at least 10 gigawatts of data center capacity over the next several years. For context, that is nation-scale power.
The magnitude exceeds even the already staggering $180 billion in server spending through 2029 that Anthropic previously communicated to investors. Ten gigawatts is not just incremental expansion. It implies a structural bet on long-duration compute demand.
Anthropic is said to be exploring a hybrid approach: continuing to rent capacity from cloud providers, while also leasing dedicated data center space and purchasing and operating its own server equipment. In other words, moving from pure customer to partial infrastructure owner.
That shift changes the company’s risk profile. It introduces capital intensity, execution complexity, and exposure to power markets. But it also signals confidence in sustained token demand at scale.
10 GW is roughly:
- The electricity consumption of several million households
- Comparable to the output of ~10 large nuclear reactors
- A meaningful share of a small country’s total power capacity
ByteDance escalated the AI video race
Over the weekend, it unveiled Seedance 2.0, a new AI video generation model that immediately gained traction across social media. Early users are calling it a potential inflection point. The praise centers on its ability to generate complex multi-shot scenes with synchronized sound effects, music, and dialogue — including support for multiple languages.
That level of coherence moves AI video closer to production-grade output rather than experimental demos.
Just days before Seedance 2.0, Kuaishou launched Kling 3.0, another upgraded video model that also received strong early reviews.
Databricks Is Preparing for Winter
Databricks closed its expanded financing on Monday: $5 billion in equity plus $2 billion in debt capacity, all at a $134 billion valuation. The round was upsized from an initial $4 billion target after JPMorgan increased its commitment and Microsoft joined late.
Annualized revenue now stands at $5.4 billion, up 65% year over year. AI products alone account for $1.4 billion in annualized revenue. The company is free cash flow positive over the trailing twelve months.
CEO Ali Ghodsi framed the raise as strategic insurance, telling Reuters the $7 billion war chest makes Databricks “really well capitalized, in case there’s a winter coming.”
Public software names are being repriced under the pressure of AI-driven margin compression and shifting enterprise spend. Databricks, by contrast, now sits at a valuation above public rival Snowflake, whose market cap is roughly $58 billion. Private markets are effectively pricing Databricks as the AI-native data platform winner — before an IPO forces public price discovery.
Capital is not waiting for certainty
Harvey is reportedly raising at an $11 billion valuation, just months after touching $8 billion. If the round closes at that level, it implies a $3 billion step-up in a single funding cycle. The company reached $190 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2025, up from $100 million in August.
Stripe is in talks to launch a tender offer that could value the company at $140 billion or more, a more than 30% jump from its $107 billion valuation last fall. In a market still debating IPO windows, Stripe continues to manufacture its own liquidity.
In AI video, Runway raised $315 million at a $5.3 billion valuation.
And in robotics, Apptronik has now raised roughly $935 million at a valuation above $5 billion, including a $520 million Series A extension backed by investors such as Google and Mercedes-Benz.
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