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Dell CEO unveils new 'Dude, you’re getting a Dell (AI server rack)' video — PC maker recycles famous PC ad campaign to tout its new AI data center products
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Dell has created a humorous 2026 update to its iconic early-2000s “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” series of commercials. Company CEO Michael Dell shared a brief new 10-second commercial this weekend, which shows the Dell Dude (basically a Ben Curtis-alike), gleefully opening the garage door, ready for his shiny new Dell AI rack to be delivered, which is then dropped in his yard from a crane.
The revamped AI era ‘Dude, you’re getting a Dell’ commercial can be seen by expanding the tweet above.
In the commercials of old, dating back 26 years to 2020, the Ben Curtis character would insert himself into situations where folks were discussing acquiring a new PC. After highlighting all the thrilling features of one of the latest Dell PCs of the era, he could then deliver his catchphrase to the delighted on-screen shopper: “Dude, you’re getting a Dell.”
Pentium III era ‘Dude, you’re getting a Dell’ commercial
Perhaps now PCs aren’t that important to Dell, and a lot of other once-major PC companies. Nodding knowingly at this fact, and likely cheered on by investors, Michael Dell acknowledges 2026 is instead all about AI servers.
While the original ads hyped up getting a prebuilt PC, now the communicated excitement is getting a fresh hulking dual-door AI compute cabinet packed with hardware so cool it emits frosty mist. In the video, we see what could be Dell PowerRack or PowerCool systems. These might be packed with multiple Xeon or Epyc CPUs, tens of the latest Nvidia GPUs, dozens of DIMMs, and oodles of fast storage. All potentially sucking kilowatts of power.
Of course, Dell’s post is basically a parody/joke, as few if any home users would want to buy such powerful and expensive hardware for a corner of the garage. The most obvious use for this hardware would be for local LLM and generative AI work at scale – working on very large models without cloud latency, usage fees, rate limits and so on. But very few independent researchers or hobbyists (well, none) will be getting this Dell delivery to their home.
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Instead, Michael Dell’s ‘2026’ commercial break may be signaling to IT business watchers that Dell is now far more invested in, and making far more income from, its AI-industry-facing businesses – like these extremely powerful rack systems.