Talk about a backfire… and an expensive one. If you watched the Super Bowl, you probably walked away thinking three things. One, the contest between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots was one of the most boring “Big Games” of all time. Two, the quality of commercials for the Super Bowl has really dropped off. And three… Ring cameras are always watching.
Ring really thought they had something with the 30-second ad they debuted during the Super Bowl. The commercial shared that the Amazon doorbell company was introducing a new “Search Party” feature. They explained it as an AI-tool that could bring in other, nearby Ring cameras to help find a lost dog.
People watching immediately thought it was bit creepy… check it out:
Also… 10,000,000 pets go missing each year and only a dog a day has been recovered thank to this “Search Party” technology? So tens of millions of doggos get lost from January to December and Ring helped find 365 of them? Not exactly something I’d brag about. And how are people losing that many pets per year? Sheesh…
More importantly, people that watched that ad were like, “Wait a second… Ring cameras are creating a blanket surveillance system that AI can tap into?” As you might imagine, criticism quickly ensued, and many who use Ring wondered how they could opt out:
This is genuinely soft launching the surveillance state
— paul (@Paul_provalone) February 9, 2026
This is some real dystopian shit pic.twitter.com/gw4W2JECRF
— Russian warship, go f*** yourself (@JonezinWidJonez) February 9, 2026
Again pic.twitter.com/glZjU0vNgE
— k (@grave_concerns) February 9, 2026
10 million missing, 1 found per day. small price to pay for total loss of privacy
— upgrayedd (@_libertarianish) February 9, 2026
This is literally the technology that Batman used find Joker in The Dark Knight and decided it was too unethical to ever be used again
— Scott Baiowulf (@BaiowulfScott) February 9, 2026
Love when someone explains it to me in Batman terms.
Not exactly the type of response you want from your Super Bowl commercial, eh? Usually, big companies spend large amounts of money to convince individuals that they need the product they are selling. Not only did Ring push away any prospective consumers… they freaked out their existing customer base. To be clear, the Search Party feature will still be part of the Ring camera, and customers will still be able to issue a Community Request that Ring owners will be able to opt into or decline, but who they’re partnering with on some of the AI technology, Flock Safety, is changing.
In the days after the Super Bowl, they’ve decided to discontinue the partnership with Flock Safety. Flock’s AI tech is the same tech that police use for reading license plates automatically, in addition to the forensic video analytics, and the thought was that their AI tech could be utilized to strengthen various Ring functions, including the Search Party. Although, it should be mentioned that Flock has been “accused” of allowing ICE to use their tech in their immigration enforcement, so that has contributed to the backlash as well:
“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. As a result, we have made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration.”
So while it seems like the commercial may have sparked some backlash that might’ve contributing to them making some changes, the lost dog “Search Party” function WILL still be available.
Just to recap, Ring rolled out a 30-second ad that cost them somewhere around $8 million to place within the Super Bowl, their messaging freaked everyone out and sparked “Big Brother” accusations… not great. But contrary to some reports, Ring never launched the Flock AI tech, the Search Party function IS very much still live… and won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
