NBCU Supersizes Super Bowl Ad Offerings and AI Capabilities Ahead of 100th Anniversary

NBCUniversal will turn 100 in 2026, and ahead of its anniversary, the company is announcing a slate of new advertising features and AI capabilities, including an updated ad model for live events such as the Super Bowl.

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), NBCUniversal previewed its future of full-funnel advertising and unveiled new engagement capabilities within its One Platform technology stack as well as success metrics, illustrating the effectiveness of its TV advertising.

“We have taken the time to invest in the right technology with One Platform Total Audience and prioritize Peacock as an ad-supported streaming service,” Mark Marshall, chairman, global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, told ADWEEK. “And one of the announcements we are excited about this CES is combining both ad and creative optimization so that we can find the right audience in the right content at the right time for our media partners. That is a game-changer and a core differentiator for us.”

NBCUniversal announced new and expanded features on Peacock for viewers and advertisers, which includes a Live in Browse feature that debuts this month and brings live events to life on the homepage, automatically playing in the top row as soon as viewers open the app. 

Additionally, NBCUniversal will make its pause ad format available within live events. According to the company, Peacock drove a 43% increase in brand site visitation and 43% higher memorability compared to standard ads, making pause ads even more effective.

Super ad models

The company also announced the expansion of its Ad Creative Engine, which uses generative AI, machine learning, and statistical models to understand the historical performance of ad creative within specific content, predicting how creative will perform for KPIs such as brand awareness, message breakthrough, ad likeability, and search engagement. 

“We have capabilities, including NBCUniversal’s Ad Creative Engine, that make marketing within live programming even more effective,” Marshall said. “The incredible advantage of this capability is that it allows us to take a specific piece of creative from a marketer and find the right target audience and find the right tonality and thematic to put that creative against.”

The capability will now be expanded to the biggest moments in live event content, as well as an updated Super Bowl ad model for February 2026, leveraging three times more data points since 2018. 

The NBCU ads president noted that the company has every ad over the past 11 Super Bowls characterized against four KPIs—brand awareness, message breakthrough, ad likeability, and search engagement. The company has also worked with over 100 different test campaigns, with the goal of scaling its capabilities to other live events across its portfolio.

Heading into the Olympic Games Milan Cortina 2026, NBCUniversal reports that it has seen success with its Olympic ad model, which is powered by more than 30 billion data points derived from more than 1,600 ads spanning four Olympic games—generating a 73% increase in message memorability for optimized creative. 

Demonstrating the effectiveness of its offerings and the Ad Creative Engine, Marshall shared the story of an Olympics auto advertiser that had message memorability as its key KPI.

“We provided recommendations like incorporating more humor, expanding the use of voiceover, and adding in more branding elements,” Marshall said. “Based on those recommendations, we forecasted the ad would drive 45% in message memorability. In actuality, the ad ran so strongly that it delivered 118% lift.”

Using One solution

According to NBCUniversal, its One Platform Total Audience has delivered full-funnel effectiveness for brands in categories across beauty, retail, and pharmaceutical.

The company reports that One Platform Total Audience campaigns have generated a 32% increase in purchase intent and a 33% increase in brand favorability, as well as two times the increase in search engagement and a 64% increase in incremental store visits. Meanwhile, it has resulted in 28% greater reach, 22% higher search engagement, and a 7% lift in prescription conversations. 

Additionally, NBCUniversal was the first publisher partner for Adobe Real-Time CDP Collaboration, a solution that brought publishers and advertisers together to discover, reach, and measure high-value audiences. Through the beta version, advertisers experienced two times more efficient conversion, ten times better match rates, and a 90% lift compared to standard audience onboarding.

According to the company, CPG brands that participated in NBCUniversal’s retail media data collaboration pilot with Instacart saw between 8 to 17 times more return on ad spend (ROAS), with an average of 37% new-to-brand buyers on Instacart. During a real-time outcome measurement beta period, NBCUniversal tracked conversions attributed to streaming campaign exposures in flight and found that advertisers saw an average of 8.5 times more ROAS. This measurement capability will be generally available starting in the first quarter, the company noted.

“Those results proved that we are winning in categories where consideration matters and share shift is happening,” Marshall said. “Not only was the return on investment strong, but the more important impact was how we were driving new buyers into a category.”

From kickoff to tipoff

On the programming side, NBCUniversal will kick off fall 2025 with the return of the NBA to NBC and Peacock, as well as the return of BravoCon in Las Vegas. Then, in February 2026, the Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games, Super Bowl LX, and the NBA All-Star Game will be held within 10 days of each other, which will be a first in sports-media history.

The WNBA tips off in May, and June will see the addition of the Spanish-language presentation of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Meanwhile, fall 2026 will showcase the WNBA Finals and the Big Ten Football Championship Game.

It was already a robust lineup before NBCU’s recent media rights deal for the NBA, a brand Marshall has a history with, previously serving as an svp at Turner Sports.

“Having the NBA returning to NBC—and debuting on Peacock—after having worked on the brand for 15 years is one of the things I am most excited about, especially as we look forward to the monumental content lineup that we have,” Marshall said.