What the Super Bowl Ads Showed Us About AI & Your College Student’s Future

DISCOVERING AI: Igniting Human Potential
By Amy D. Love, Founder of DISCOVERING AI and of the Global FAMILY AI GAME PLAN initiative

What the Super Bowl Ads Showed Us About AI & Your College Student’s Future

The Super Bowl is often described as a mirror of culture.

This year, it quietly became a preview of your college student’s future.

Anthropic. OpenAI. Google. Amazon. Meta.
AI companies did not show up to entertain. They showed up to compete for trust, attention, and long-term adoption.

That matters for parents of college students thinking about majors, internships, first jobs, and long-term career paths.

This was not about clever commercials.
It was about positioning.

What those ads were really selling

Every AI company on the Super Bowl stage was competing for the same outcome: to become the assistant, agent, or platform people rely on every day.

One ad stood out because it used satire to surface a serious issue.

Anthropic’s Claude campaign poked fun at the idea of ads appearing inside AI conversations. In one spot, a young man asks a deeply human question: how to communicate better with his mom. The response is interrupted by an ad-like suggestion, turning something personal into something transactional.

The point lands quickly.
If AI becomes the intermediary in our most human moments, the values behind it matter.

AI is no longer a specialty skill or a niche tool. It is becoming infrastructure. Infrastructure shapes how work gets done, how performance is evaluated, and where opportunity flows.

Your college student will not be asked, “Do you use AI?”
They will be evaluated on how they use it, why they use it, and whether they still know how to think.

What I’m seeing on college campuses right now

That tension shows up clearly in my conversations with college students.

Over the past year, I’ve had this conversation across the country, from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, to San Jose State in the heart of Silicon Valley

Different campuses. Different majors. Same concerns.

Students understand AI’s power. They are trying to figure out how to use it without undermining their own thinking, credibility, and independence.

They are asking:
How do employers tell the difference between shortcut work and strong thinking?
What skills still matter when answers come instantly?
How do you build a career when roles keep changing?

These questions come up regardless of geography or discipline.

What college students actually need to focus on

AI is changing how work gets done. It does not remove the need for human judgment.

The students who will thrive are learning to use AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement. They are building skills AI cannot own.

• Adaptability

• Critical thinking

• Creativity

• Emotional intelligence

• Technological fluency

• Initiative

These traits consistently surface in conversations with employers, professors, and students alike.

AI can accelerate output.
It cannot build character, context, or credibility.

The role parents still play in the Age of AI

Here is what matters most for parents.

You do not need to be an AI expert to support your college student. You do need to help them ask better questions.

Questions like:

• How are you using AI to deepen your thinking rather than bypass it? 

• Where are you practicing skills that cannot be automated?

• How are you showing employers how you think, not just what you produce?

The Anthropic ad resonated because it highlighted something many families already sense. AI will increasingly sit between people and their work, their communication, and their decisions.

Parents who engage in these conversations give their students an advantage no tool can replicate.

This is not about control.
It is about guidance at a moment that truly matters.

Why this moment is different

Many families treated social media as optional until it shaped behavior.

AI is moving faster, and it is influencing education, careers, and relationships at the same time.

That is why DISCOVERING AI exists.
To help families replace confusion with clarity, anxiety with confidence, and isolation with connection.

Your college student does not need fewer tools.
They need stronger thinking and intentional guidance.

That is how they become future-ready.
That is how they stay irreplaceable in the Age of AI.

Join the conversation

In this week’s Facebook Live session of Parenting in the Age of AI, we’re expanding the conversation into real school experiences.

Come curious. Leave steadier.

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐈: Igniting Human Potential

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