The End of Expensive Ads? AI Video Made for CZK 50,000 Takes Over Screens

The advertising industry is undergoing a revolution, vividly demonstrated by Kalshi's 30-second commercial during the NBA Finals. While traditional commercials cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require months of work, this one was created in just two days for less than $2,000—entirely with AI.

The Unusual Path to the Year's Most Talked-About Commercial

Kalshi, which operates a prediction betting platform, hired P.J. Accetturo with a clear brief: "Create the craziest possible commercial for the NBA Finals." The result exceeded all expectations. The commercial features a series of bizarre scenes—a man with a beer belly hugging Chihuahuas, a bride escaping the police in a golf cart, and a farmer bathing in a pool full of eggs. All these scenes were created using Google Veo 3, a cutting-edge AI video generator. "Kalshi hired me to create the craziest possible commercial for the NBA Finals," Accetturo wrote on the social network X. The commercial premiered during Game 3 of the NBA Finals on June 11 via YouTube TV streaming, when the Indiana Pacers faced the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Technology Behind the Success

The creative process began with Kalshi providing Accetturo with a list of themes, ideas, and pieces of dialogue, as company spokesperson Jack Such confirmed. Accetturo turned these concepts into a script and AI prompts—instructions that tell AI systems what type of content to create. Accetturo publicly shared many of his prompts and revisions online, explaining how he used the Google Veo 3 AI video generator to create the commercial. In a tweet, he said that he also used AI to help write the script, specifically products from Google and OpenAI. "I work with Gemini (or ChatGPT), ask it for ideas, select the best ones, and shape them into a simple script," he wrote. He then uses Gemini to turn the script into a detailed prompt for Veo 3, broken down shot by shot. If the resulting video is not what he is looking for, he feeds the prompt back into Gemini and asks for changes until he is satisfied with the AI-generated shot.

The Cost-Saving Math of a New Era

The cost of creating the commercial was dramatically lower than with traditional methods. While typical commercials aired during the NBA Finals often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require months of preparation, Accetturo's commercial was completed in two days at a much lower cost. Jack Such declined to disclose Accetturo's fee for creating the commercial, but added: "The actual cost of prompting the AI—what was used instead of studios, directors, actors, etc.—was under $2,000." Accetturo adds about the process: "It took about 300–400 generations to get 15 usable clips. Just because it was cheap doesn't mean anyone can do it."

Reception and the Future of Advertising

One week after its streaming premiere, the video had amassed more than 3 million views on Kalshi's X account and sparked discussions about how AI could reshape advertising budgets. "We are incredibly pleased with the result and effectiveness of the commercial," Kalshi spokesperson Jack Such told NPR. "It generated a lot of buzz on social media." Marketing analyst Debra Aho Williamson, founder of Sonata Insights, a Seattle-based research and advisory service focused on artificial intelligence, sees the commercial as a perfect match between content and medium. "A similar video with human actors could have captured the same energy," Williamson says, "but because they did it with AI, it is getting a lot of attention." Georgia State University marketing professor Alok Saboo compares the current hype around AI to the earlier excitement over CGI effects. Both experts agree that AI "will lower the barrier to entry for some smaller brands" that cannot afford a traditional video advertising campaign.

Obstacles and Challenges

Although Kalshi's commercial was successful, not all AI commercials have received such a strong response. Williamson points to a study from last year that found young people are skeptical of AI. "When we asked consumers [Gen Zers and millennials] in August last year how positively they viewed AI-generated ads, only 48% said they felt positively about an AI-generated ad," she says. Accetturo, an advertising industry veteran, says AI will be a major part of the industry's future. Experts who spoke with NPR tend to agree, although they are not yet sure to what extent the technology could replace jobs. Williamson praises Accetturo for his transparency: "I really applaud him for being so open about his methodology and how he was able to create the commercial. Because I think everyone can learn from it. Consumers can learn, but the advertising industry can learn as well."

Looking Ahead

In addition to reducing production costs, Saboo predicts that AI will allow marketers to personalize ads for specific locations and audiences more cheaply. "You may see a different version of the ad than I do," he says.When asked about Kalshi's future plans, Such replies that the company wants to use AI in future advertising campaigns—but adds: "We will not completely abandon traditional formats." As Saboo puts it: "Ultimately, people want to connect with people." Nevertheless, the groundbreaking success of Kalshi's AI commercial suggests that the future of the advertising industry will be significantly shaped by artificial intelligence, which offers faster, cheaper, and more creative alternatives to traditional methods.