Google’s new ad has Steph Curry switching to Pixel 10

Google is making a play for loyalty, or rather, for those who’ve held on to their phones with the devotion of a long-term relationship, and it has enlisted one of sport’s most famously steadfast figures to do it. The company’s new campaign for the Pixel 10 series stars basketball superstar Stephen Curry, a man whose consistency is practically a character trait. Seventeen years with the Golden State Warriors, eleven with the same coach, the same warm-up ritual, the same jersey number; if reliability were a sport, he’d have trophies there too.

That, of course, is the point. The campaign hinges on the idea that if Curry, a creature of habit on and off the court, can switch his phone, perhaps anyone can. The spot, created by 72andSunny Los Angeles, opens with Curry narrating the rhythms of his career: the first shot he takes before every warm-up, the team he’s never left, the routines that anchor him. Against that backdrop of unwavering repetition, the Pixel 10 Fold is framed as the rare exception that convinced him to break pattern.

In the ad, Curry wanders through a series of playful demonstrations, showcasing the phone’s folding display and Google’s increasingly confident push into AI-driven features. The highlight is a moment of vanity-tinged mischief: a photo of teammate Jimmy Butler sporting a fresh bob haircut. Using the Pixel’s voice-powered editing tool, Curry tries the hairstyle on himself before delivering the neatly timed line, “maybe I don’t have to change everything.”

The partnership between Curry and Google isn’t merely advertising decoration; it is part of a larger, more deliberate strategy. Earlier this year, Google announced that the Warriors star had joined as a “performance advisor” across Google Health, Google Pixel and Google Cloud. The brief was unusually expansive: Curry would help “fine-tune” products, shape future features and even influence hardware design. Whether that means prototype testing between games or algorithm training between free throws is left to the imagination, but his involvement gives the Pixel campaign a narrative backbone rather than a one-off celebrity cameo.

Curry isn’t the only Warrior drafted into service. The brand has rolled out a parallel spot with Curry's teammate Jimmy Butler, who appears mid-experiment with an array of hairstyles. His conclusion mirrors Curry’s; perhaps a switch isn’t such a monumental leap after all.

The timing of Google’s creative full-court press is no coincidence. The Pixel 10 series, launched in August, has been positioned as a watershed moment for the line, signalling Google’s ambition to compete more aggressively at the top end of the smartphone market. The company has been pushing hard on hardware refinements, AI-first capabilities and the idea of Pixel as an ecosystem rather than a single device. This latest campaign, equal parts self-aware and gently teasing, slots neatly into that strategy.

By pairing the phone with two players known for their strong sense of identity and routine, Google is making a subtler point: switching doesn’t have to signal betrayal, and even the most consistent people can allow the occasional exception. If the Pixel 10 Fold can tempt Curry out of his habits, the company seems to suggest, it may just tempt a few loyalists out of theirs.