AI advertising has reached the Miami Beach waterline, and some Reddit users have strong views about it.
A Reddit user posted a video of a boat near a Miami beach carrying a giant digital screen. The ad promoted ChatGPT and showed a whale.
Another user asked whether the clip was real. The original poster replied, “It’s 100% real unfortunately.”
What Did Reddit Users Say?
The post ran on the r/LateStageCapitalism community. Many comments said the ad felt intrusive in a place people visit to relax. (To be fair, this community was hardly going to be warm about boat ads).
“The whole beach made me very uncomfortable…” one commenter wrote, describing barges with giant screens “driving up and down rolling ads.”
Another commenter looked ahead. “We’re about to enter the cyberpunk era where skies and buildings are covered with signs, projections, and holograms of ads aren’t we?”
A third Redditor wrote one word. “Dystopian.”
Some comments focused on the image. “Why save wildlife when you can have floating billboards with hallucinated images of wildlife on them,” one commenter said.
Who Is Behind the Boat?
The boat belongs to Ballyhoo Media, a Miami company that sells advertising on floating LED screens. It was founded in 2016.
Its boats carry screens about 20 feet tall and 60 feet wide. They have worked Biscayne Bay and the Miami River.
Billboard Insider names the founders as Adam Shapiro, Nate Shapiro and Tyler Zlatin. It lists six active markets, including Tampa, Seattle, New York and Chicago.
The founders describe their goal this way: “OOH should be beautiful, effective, fun, and sustainable.”
Ballyhoo also lists environmental work. Billboard Insider says it partners with universities and nonprofits on water quality testing and microplastic cleanup technology.
Ballyhoo and Miami Beach
Ballyhoo and the city have a history. In early 2017 the Miami Beach commission voted to ban advertising vessels from parts of Biscayne Bay.
Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez described the boats as “obnoxious and intrusive.” She also asked about scale: “can you imagine if we’ve got 10 boats out there?”
The law reached only Biscayne Bay waters, not the ocean. Shapiro said Ballyhoo would continue operating off the beach.
“Although we cannot display advertising in certain areas in Biscayne Bay, we are excited to operate along the shores of Miami Beach,” he said.
Shapiro has argued that beach advertising has existed for decades. He compared the screens to airplane fly-overs.
He also said the boats offered affordable marketing for local businesses and carried public service and environmental messages.
The Model in Other Cities
Ballyhoo began running a boat in New York in 2018. By January 2019 the city’s Law Department was in discussions with the company.
Digiday reported 2019 pricing for the boats. A 30-second spot in a two-minute loop cost about $35,000 in Miami for four weeks.
Digiday also spoke with advertisers about the format. “I find it over the line personally, and I’m not sure why,” one out-of-home media executive said.
Where OpenAI’s Advertising Stands
OpenAI has made advertising a business. It began serving ads in ChatGPT in February 2026, with Omnicom Media and Dentsu among early participants.
It also ran an in-house billboard campaign for ChatGPT Images from May to August. Miami was one of five cities.
The Miami placement was a live rotating billboard near the Pérez Art Museum. It showed user-submitted images, including a giant sloth climbing a building.
OpenAI’s Bailey Richardson said the billboards should feel “more like invitations” than static advertisements.
What Comes Next
The 2017 ordinance still covers only parts of Biscayne Bay. Ocean waters off Miami Beach remain open to boats like these.
MAIN has covered how OpenAI ads passed $1 billion and what Miami marketers should watch.
MAIN has also covered Miami’s GetHookd on AI advertising.
The boat, the ad and the Reddit thread are all part of the same story. AI advertising now reaches the beach.
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