April Fools’ Day 2026: The Good, the Bad and the Bizarre of This Year’s Corporate Jokes – CNET

If you’re online at all in 2026, you know it can feel like April Fools’ Day every day. You’ve almost certainly come across videos and content, often created with AI, and had to stop and ask yourself if what you’re looking at is true or made up. 

Some are obvious. You mean, there aren’t really beds made of kittens, cotton candy and rubies? And I wasn’t really offered a job guarding a spooky funeral home where I might hear tapping coming from the morgue freezer at 3 a.m.? (Both of these are TikTok videos, and the AI is scarily good — and also just scary.)

As brands roll out their April Fools’ Day jokes for this year, I keep thinking that in an AI-heavy world, the jokes seem less surprising, the faked-up art less novel. Here are some highlights from this year’s list of April 1 corporate and tech jokes.

Dyson beauty tools for pets

PSA: Do not use a styling tool, especially a heated one, on your poor pets. That said, this April Fools’ Day prank promoting a fictional Dyson Air Wrap for pets is pretty cute. That horse, cat and dog look pretty elegant with their new curls. There’s a fun YouTube Short, too.

PlayStation Project Playmo

Why have your own fun when you can outsource it? IGN created an April Fools’ Day prank involving a fake PlayStation controller dubbed Project Playmo with Al Copilot. The joke is that it can not only play games for you, but will override your wishes and do a lot of embarrassing or dumb things, like change your online ID to something humiliating or play back your Voice Chat recordings at the worst possible times.

Snap gets Real

This April 1 joke seems like it could maybe be a practical, real thing. Traeger makes wood-pellet grills, and this year’s joke is their claim to offer AI-powered grilling eyeglasses. “With smart guidance, thermal imaging, night‑vision, and hands‑free photo and video capture, MEAT‑AI lets you command every cook like never before,” the site touts. Hmm, I wouldn’t actually mind a pair of glasses that could look down at my grill and tell me whether my steak is done or how much more time it needs to cook. Get on that, Traeger.

T-Mobile cologne

Whisker cat hair clothing

Those who spend too much time on their phones might appreciate the idea behind Yahoo’s prank, Scrōll Stoppr. It’s described as “a delightfully absurd finger accessory that physically blocks your thumb from touching your phone screen.” I hate to break it to Yahoo, but I discovered this myself years ago when I cut my thumb slicing onions for Thanksgiving and had to wrap it in a Band-Aid. Yahoo says you can actually buy this — it will be available for $5 on Yahoo TikTok Shop on April 1 and will be delivered in a box that sounds off with the Yahoo signature yodel. If it sells out, just put on a Band-Aid for the same results. BYO yodel.

Omaha Steaks pocket steak

Baskin-Robbins has always had creative ice cream flavors, but for April 1, the company is hyping… ice cream soup. Not real, of course, but they’re promoting the faux frozen dessert in hopes that people will be inspired to take advantage of a buy-one-get-one 50% off deal on pre-packed quarts April 1-2 for Baskin-Robbins Rewards Members. Slurp ’em if you got ’em.

Baby Bottle Pop, supplement style