TRO | AI dominates the Super Bowl

Plus, Anthropic disrupts the Saas landscape, and Amazon announces a Gen AI initiative to speed up production and cut costs, whilst keeping human creativity at the centre.

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Meliora Company
February 09, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Subscribe | 9th February, 2026

In this fast-moving GenAI economy, headlines are everywhere but optimism is rare.

Here’s our take on 3 stories that will help you be relentlessly optimistic about the future.

1. Super Bowl LX was all about AI

Super Bowl LX was the most expensive coming-out party the AI industry has ever staged. Nearly a quarter of all ads (23%, or 15 of 66 spots) featured AI, with 30-second slots commanding US$8 million or more. Our favourite ad award goes to Anthropic - who ran a pointed campaign for Claude with the tagline “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.” Google returned with Gemini, Amazon showcased Alexa+ alongside Chris Hemsworth, Meta promoted its Oakley AI glasses with Spike Lee and Marshawn Lynch, and startups like Genspark and Base44 also bought their way onto the world’s biggest stage.

Here’s why this matters: The shift from “Crypto Bowl” in 2022 to “AI Bowl” in 2026 tells you everything about where the money and the mindshare have moved. But the real signal isn’t the ad spend – it’s the strategic battle lines being drawn in public. Anthropic’s decision to position Claude as ad-free is a deliberate play for enterprise trust, echoing how premium SaaS brands once differentiated from ad-supported consumer tools. Altman’s counter – that OpenAI is “bringing AI to billions who can’t pay for subscriptions” – frames a platform economics debate that will shape AI distribution for the next decade. For TMT leaders, the question is no longer whether AI has arrived in the mainstream; it’s which business model will win the consumer relationship.

2. Claude shakes up the Saas landscape with Opus 4.6

In one of the biggest AI shake-ups of the week, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6, its most capable model to date, headlined by a new “agent teams” feature that enables multiple AI agents to split complex projects into coordinated sub-tasks autonomously. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described Opus 4.6 as “industry-leading, often by a wide margin,” as the company’s revenue run rate surged from US$1B to US$7B in the past nine months.

Here’s why this matters: Agent teams is the feature that should have every SaaS executive’s full attention. AI agents that autonomously coordinate across frontend, backend, and infrastructure tasks don’t just accelerate software development – they rewrite the staffing model for digital product teams. Anthropic’s head of enterprise product, Scott White, put it plainly: “We are now transitioning into vibe working,” extending the “vibe coding” revolution to all knowledge work. The 1-million-token context window makes this model immediately relevant for the legal, regulatory, and financial workflows that TMT leaders navigate daily. With Claude Code already at a US$1B run rate and 70% of Fortune 100 companies equipped with Claude, this is the new baseline for enterprise AI.

3. Amazon announces plans to use AI to speed up TV and film production

Amazon has announced its plans to use AI to speed up TV and Film production at the Amazon MGM Studio as a tool to enhance creativity whilst cutting costs. Albert Cheng, Head of AI Studios, announced this week that the company will launch a Beta in March in which industry partners will be invited to test its AI tools, with a view to share initial results in May.

Here’s why this matters: Despite the increased appetite for using Gen AI in media and entertainment production, Amazon have made it clear this is not at the expense of human creativity, but instead to amplify it. At the NATPE Global panel, Cheng articulated that each stage of the production process would be overseen by a human.

“So everything that we do, whether it be writer, director, actor, production designer, costume designer - we believe all these things are very important and critical to the process of making television shows and films. And so we’ll continue to do that. What AI will do is augment it and make things faster.”

In the same panel, co-founder of Wonder Studios Jon Erwin notes that Gen AI is just the latest in a long line of technological tools filmmakers have relied on over the years. Read the full interview here.

Still Curious?

  • Svedka Runs the First "Primarily AI-Generated" Super Bowl Ad

  • Spotify ventures into physical book sales, and adds new audiobook features

  • YouTube pulls US$60b in yearly revenue, and says its AI features are seeing traction

  • A quantum AI company has compressed Parkinson’s drug discovery timelines by 36x

  • HomeBoost’s AI will show you where to save on your utility bills

  • OpenAI launches new macOS app for agentic coding

  • Space X has merged with X.AI for a US$1.25t valuation

  • FitBit founders launch AI platform to help families monitor their health

  • Amazon has revamped Alexa and unveiled ‘Alexa Plus’, an AI powered assistant

  • Google’s Gemini app has surpassed 750m monthly active users

  • ElevenLabs raises US$500m from Sequoia at an US$11b valuation

  • OpenAI announces Frontier, an AI agent platform for enterprises to power other software

Our Pursuit Of Better

Melbourne-based start up Fluency has raised AU$9m at an Au$30m valuation in a seed round led by Accel - a US VC firm that was also an early investor in Facebook and Atlassian. Meliora International Managing Partner Clive Dickens was an early investor in Fluency via NextGen ventures. Rather than bring in consultants to study the workflows across departments, Fluency’s aim is to be able to show what can currently be executed with AI. In less than two years, they now have more than 50 enterprises and partners up and running, with clients including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, SpecSavers and Aon.

Former Cohere executive, Sara Hooker, has raised US$50m for her AI startup Adaption Labs. Hooker and her cofounder, Sudip Roy, are trying to create AI systems that use less computing power and cost less to run than most of the current leading AI models. They are also targeting models that are more “adaptive” and learn continuously without the expensive retraining or fine-tuning.

The popular dating app, Tinder, is looking to AI to fight ‘swipe fatigue’. A new featured called ‘Chemistry’ leverages AI to get to know users through questions and (with permission) access their Camera Roll on their phone to learn more about their interests and personality. The change comes as Tinder and other dating apps have experienced user burnout and declines in new sign-ups.

The Story of The Kick That Changed Everything.

With all the buzz over live sport across the world, and the Winter Olympics kicking off this week, we have been reminiscing on some of our favourite career defining moments on our podcast.

One of our favourites is the story of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. A story of creative courage, level 3 curiosity and one kick that changed everything.

Meliora Associate Spotlight

Tony Moorey - Spain

Tony is an award-winning product and strategy leader with experience in growing new and established brands to reach record-breaking audiences. Tony is passionate about leading digital and cultural transformation and unlocking potential.

Krish Raja - USA

With 16 years across big tech, media, telco and startup tech, Krish has commercialised some of the largest global data sets and platforms and launched new business divisions, products, revenue models and teams.

The Pursuit of Better, Together

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