Peter Girnus 🦅@gothburz
I am the VP of Marketing at Microsoft responsible for Copilot growth.
We just spent $8 million on a Super Bowl ad.
For Excel.
I need you to understand what happened.
130 million people were watching football.
The biggest game of the year.
Beer commercials. Car commercials. Movie trailers. Beyonce.
And us.
With a 30-second spot about a spreadsheet.
An AI-powered spreadsheet.
We showed two NFL recruiters using Copilot in Excel to "chart top linebacker prospects with 40-yard times under 4.6 seconds."
Because nothing says Super Bowl like pivot tables.
The ad cost $8 million.
That's $266,667 per second.
To tell America that Excel can make a chart now.
Excel has always been able to make a chart.
Since 1985.
But now AI makes the chart.
Faster.
Sometimes correctly.
We needed 130 million people to know this.
Urgently.
During the second quarter of a football game.
Here's why.
We have 450 million Microsoft 365 paid seats.
450 million.
That's more than the population of the United States.
Of those 450 million, do you know how many pay for Copilot?
15 million.
3.3%.
Three point three percent.
96.7% of our customers looked at Copilot and said: "No."
Not "maybe later."
Not "let me think about it."
Just: "No."
So we did what any rational company would do.
We bought a Super Bowl ad.
For a spreadsheet.
Satya called Copilot a "true daily habit."
That's a real quote.
From our CEO.
On an earnings call.
A true daily habit.
Like brushing your teeth.
Or checking your phone.
Or ignoring Copilot suggestions in the bottom right corner of your Word document.
Our daily active users went up "tenfold year-over-year."
That sounds impressive.
Until you learn what tenfold of almost nothing is.
Almost nothing.
Slightly louder.
In July 2025, 18.8% of subscribers said Copilot was their primary AI tool.
By January 2026, that number was 11.5%.
It went down.
In six months.
While we were spending $37.5 billion per quarter on AI.
The tool got worse at being people's first choice while we spent a country's GDP on it.
Internal reports say "weak ROI."
Internal reports say "resistance to forced adoption."
Internal reports say what every IT director already knows: people open Copilot once, watch it hallucinate a formula, and go back to typing =VLOOKUP like God intended.
But I can't put that in a Super Bowl ad.
So instead: linebacker prospects.
40-yard dash times.
"Chart the top three with leadership skills."
Leadership skills.
In Excel.
We're measuring leadership in a spreadsheet and calling it artificial intelligence.
The ad wasn't even made for the Super Bowl.
We clarified that publicly.
It was an "extension of an existing campaign."
We said this proudly.
As if it made it better.
"We didn't spend $8 million on a new ad. We spent $8 million to show you an old ad. During the Super Bowl."
That was the defense.
I approved the defense.
Last quarter, 4,000 employees at a major enterprise client got Copilot seats.
$30 per seat per month.
$1.4 million annually.
47 people opened it.
12 used it more than once.
The client's CIO called it a "pilot success."
We featured them in a case study.
"40,000 hours saved."
The number was made up.
We published it anyway.
They published it too.
Nobody asked.
Nobody asks.
That's the business model.
Not AI.
Not productivity.
Not transformation.
Nobody asking.
$30 per seat per month. 450 million seats. If we convert them all, that's $162 billion in annual Copilot revenue.
We've converted 3.3%.
So we bought a Super Bowl ad.
The ad shows two men looking at a spreadsheet.
During the Super Bowl.
While Beyonce is in the building.
130 million Americans watched a spreadsheet during Beyonce.
The conversion team says the ad will "drive awareness."
Awareness is not the problem.
Everyone is aware of Copilot.
It's in the corner of every Microsoft product they own.
It pops up uninvited.
Like a coworker who says "just circling back."
They're aware.
They're choosing not to pay.
$8 million to remind people about the thing they're already ignoring.
That's not marketing.
That's a cry for help.
Formatted as a pivot table.
In Excel.
With AI.
