Anthropic took a shot at OpenAI with a new set of ads that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The AI startup, led by ex-OpenAI staffer Dario Amodei, took potshots at the introduction of ads inside ChatGPT.
One of the ads aired during the Super Bowl starts with the caption “betrayal”. The ad begins with a hypothetical therapist-patient scenario in which the patient, seated on the couch, asks the AI therapist how they can fix their relationship with their mother. The AI begins by giving some helpful advice, then suddenly pivots into an advertisement about dating. Anthropic ends the ad with the text, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude. Keep thinking.”
Sam Altman reacts to Anthropic's Super Bowl ads
Sam Altman reacted to the Anthropic ads in a post on X, saying they were “funny” but that OpenAI would “never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them.” Altman went on to say that users would reject advertisements of the kind shown in the ad.
Altman then accused Anthropic of being “clearly dishonest” and engaging in “doublespeak” by using “deceptive ads” to criticise a theoretical scenario that does not exist.
“More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently shaped problem than they do,” Altman wrote, taking a dig at his rival.
Altman then argued that Anthropic “serves an expensive product to rich people,” while OpenAI is committed to free access because “access creates agency.”
“Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI—they block companies they don't like from using their coding product (including us), they want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can't use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be,” he added.
Notably, Anthropic had blocked OpenAI’s API access ahead of the GPT-5 launch last year after claiming that the ChatGPT maker was violating its policies by using the services to build and train competing AI models.
“One authoritarian company won't get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path,” Altman added.
Altman also mentioned OpenAI’s Super Bowl ad, which he said focused on builders and “how anyone can now build anything.”
“We are enjoying watching so many people switch to Codex. There have now been 500,000 app downloads since launch on Monday, and we think builders are really going to love what’s coming in the next few weeks. I believe Codex is going to win,” he added.
According to TV ratings firm Nielsen, 127.7 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl last year, and this year viewership is expected to be even higher.