April Fool’s Day 2026: The good, the bad and the weird of this year’s corporate jokes

If you’re online in 2026, you know it can feel like an April Fool’s joke 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 watching is real or made up.

Some are obvious. You mean, there aren’t really beds made of kittens, cotton candy and rubies? And I wasn’t actually offered a job as a guard at a creepy funeral home where I heard banging from the morgue freezer at 3 a.m.? (These are both TikTok videos, and the AI ​​is freakishly good – and also just plain creepy.)

As brands reveal their April Fool’s jokes for this year, I continue to think that in an AI-heavy world, the jokes seem less surprising, the trick art less novelistic. Here are some highlights from this year’s list of April 1 business and technology jokes.

Dyson Pet Beauty Tools

PSA: Do not use styling tools, especially heated ones, on your poor animals. That said, this April Fools’ Day prank promoting a fictitious Dyson Air Wrap for pets is pretty cute. This horse, cat and dog look quite stylish with their new curls. There is also a fun YouTube short film.

PlayStation Playmo Project

Why have fun when you can outsource it? IGN created an April 1 prank involving a fake PlayStation controller dubbed Project Playmo featuring Al Copilot. The joke is that not only can it play games for you, but it will override your wishes and do a lot of embarrassing or stupid things, like change your online handle to something humiliating or play your voice chat recordings at the worst possible times.

Snap becomes real

Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, mocked Instagram Reels and TikTok with a prank video announcing that it was renaming Snapchat’s Spotlight feed to “Reals.” Co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel appears in a social media video in which he describes “Reals” as a place where “real people share real moments.” Really “. This is a pointed reference to the fact that Snap initially popularized short-form vertical content with Stories long before many of its competitors copied the format.

Fortnite: Big heads and llama rides

Here’s an April Fool’s joke that’s more than a joke, it’s real, but only temporary. Fortnite players can try out a 24-hour-only April Fool’s Day game update that brings some truly wacky changes to the popular game. Players have huge heads, can ride on other players’ shoulders, can use finger guns that go “bench, bench”, make a splashing sound when landing after a fall, and, perhaps best of all, rideable llamas have appeared.

Warhammer: The Musical

Hey, if Broadway can make a musical about Alexander Hamilton or a bunch of cats, surely they can make one about the Warhammer universe? That’s the joke behind this trailer for The Emperor Protects: A Warhammer 40,000 Musical, the April 1 joke from Games Workshop, creator of the popular gaming world. The 2.5 minute trailer, with awesome costumes and music, really sells it.

Traeger: AI-powered toasting glasses

This April 1st joke seems like a practical and real thing. Traeger makes wood pellet grills, and this year’s joke is their claim to offer AI-powered grilling glasses. “With intelligent guidance, thermal imaging, night vision, and hands-free photo and video capture, MEAT-AI lets you order every cook like never before,” the site boasts. Hmm, I wouldn’t really mind having a pair of glasses that could look at my grill and tell me if my steak is done or how long it takes to cook. Go ahead, Traeger.

T-Mobile Cologne

Want to smell like your cell phone? What does this mean? Wireless tech giant T-Mobile’s prank is Metro by T-Mobile CALLoGNE, combining a call, like a phone call, with cologne. The company is billing its April 1 joke as “the world’s first luxury fragrance inspired by the unmistakable smell of a brand new phone.” Metro is the prepaid brand of T-Mobile, formerly known as MetroPCS.

Timekettle British translation

The United States and the United Kingdom are said to be two nations separated by a common language. You may already be familiar with a few British expressions, including “boot” for what Americans call a car trunk, and “bonnet” for what we call the hood of a car. Timekettle makes AI-powered translation products, and its April 1 prank is a British-to-American translation update for its translation devices. Cheerio, old man.

Whiskered Cat Hair Clothing

If you own a cat, cat hair is already on everything in your closet. So Catnip (like couture, I suppose), a line of designer clothing made from real cat hair, doesn’t seem that far away. Whisker, the company behind the Litter-Robot litter box, is taking this April 1st prank to the max. They actually used real hair from adoptable cats at a Michigan animal shelter to adorn three sweaters that will then be sold on eBay. Each eBay listing also serves as an adoption profile for a real shelter cat.

Scrōll Stoppr from Yahoo

Those who spend too much time on their phones might appreciate the idea behind Yahoo’s Scrōll Stoppr prank. It’s described as “a delightfully absurd finger accessory that physically stops your thumb from touching your phone’s screen.” I hate to tell Yahoo about this, but I discovered it myself years ago when I cut my thumb cutting onions for Thanksgiving and had to wrap it in a bandage. Yahoo says you can actually buy it — it’ll be available for $5 on the Yahoo TikTok Shop on April 1 and will come in a box that rings with Yahoo’s signature yodel. If it runs out, simply apply a bandage to achieve the same results. BYO yodeling.

Pocket Steak Omaha Steaks

Need a dose of protein on the go? Omaha Steaks is best known for sending giant cases of beef as gifts, but the company’s April 1 product is “the world’s first pocket steak.” It gets beefier: The company jokes that the steak is cooked using motion-activated technology. A rare affair indeed, if done well.

Baskin-Robbins Frozen Soup

Baskin-Robbins has always had creative ice cream flavors, but for April 1, the company is promoting… ice cream soup. It’s not real, of course, but they’re promoting the fake frozen dessert in the hopes that people will be enticed to take advantage of a buy-one-get-one, 50% off offer on pre-packaged gallons on April 1 and 2 for Baskin-Robbins Rewards members. Slurp them if you have them.

Pop Bottle, Supplement Style

Adults don’t get any of the fun kid candy, but are instead forced to take vitamins and supplements. Baby Bottle Pop Candy, which is exactly what it sounds like, candy in a baby bottle container, claims for April 1 that it is now available in adult flavors. Is protein a flavor? Is fiber? Salmon is, but sweet salmon is too much, even for this Seattleite. Luckily, it’s just for April Fool’s Day.