Anthropic’s hilarious Super Bowl spot skewers potential AI ads – but OpenAI chief Sam Altman protests – News

Anthropic PBC is spending millions of dollars on a series of amusing Super Bowl commercials that poke fun at its rival OpenAI Group PBC, which recently said it’s going to start running ads in ChatGPT.

The ads follow today’s pledge by the company to ensure that its popular chatbot Claude will always remain ad-free. In a blog post, Anthropic promised that customers will never see ads or sponsored links anywhere near their conversations with Claude. In addition, it vowed that Claude’s responses will never be influenced by advertisers or suggest third-party products that users did not ask for.

The company stressed that the personal nature of interactions with Claude would make ads feel “incongruous” and “inappropriate” in many cases.

Anthropic’s pledge came as it posted a series of ads that it plans to broadcast during the Super Bowl next Sunday, centered on its decision to ensure Claude remains ad-free. Prior to the game, the company will air a 60-second ad, followed by a 30-second commercial during the game, with both featuring the same tag line: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”

The ads will cost the company millions of dollars. It hasn’t disclosed how much it will spend exactly, but during last year’s Super Bowl, 30-second ad slots sold for as much as $10 million, according to NBC.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including Chief Executive Dario Amodei, Anthropic has emerged as perhaps the biggest rival to the ChatGPT maker. Its AI chatbot Claude has become incredibly popular, especially with business users, who appreciate its coding prowess. “Our business model is straightforward,” Anthropic said. “We generate revenue through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions, and we reinvest that revenue into improving Claude for our users. This is a choice with tradeoffs, and we respect that other AI companies might reasonably reach different conclusions.”

Chatbot parodies

No doubt, many will find Anthropic’s in-game commercial amusing thanks to the way it cleverly parodies the prospect of intrusive ads popping up during chatbot interactions. It features a slim young man in a park who’s trying to do pull ups when he’s approached by a muscular bystander. The young man asks for advice about getting a six-pack, and the bystander responds similarly to a chatbot, with a slightly robotic voice that initially offers a few tips, before suddenly promoting “StepBoost Max” insoles.

“The insoles that add one vertical inch of height and help short kings stand tall. Use code ‘HeightMaxing10’ for big discounts,” he says. The man asking for advice responds with a befuddled look on his face.

Anthropic’s ad doesn’t mention OpenAI specifically, but the ad is a clear jibe at its rival, which recently unveiled plans to integrate ads in ChatGPT.

The company said last month it will begin testing ads with free ChatGPT users and also subscribers to ChatGPT Go, its cheapest paid tier. At the time, OpenAI stressed that all ads will be clearly labeled as such, and appear at the bottom of ChatGPT’s responses, without influencing its standard advice in any way.

But Anthropic doesn’t appear to be convinced by OpenAI’s promises, and it continues to poke fun at its rival in its 60-second pregame ad, which features a man in therapy asking about how he can communicate with his mother better. The therapist says he could engage with her during shared activities, such as a nature walk, before suggesting that he could also seek emotional connections with alternative mature women on “Golden Encounters,” a dating site that “connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars.”

The AI firm also posted a third ad on YouTube, but it’s not clear when it will be broadcast. In that ad, a woman is sitting in a diner with her friend when she asks for advice on starting a business. The friend responds by telling her to do her research and get to know her audience and to think of a catchy business name. She then follows up by saying that “new businesses often struggle with cash flow, so try Quick Dash Payday Loans because girl bosses need SHE-EO money quick.”

Altman hits back

True to form, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Anthropic’s ad campaign within hours. In a post on X, he claimed that he thought the ads were funny and even laughed, but immediately launched a tirade against his rival, accusing it of being dishonest. “Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that,” he insisted.

Altman went on to try and justify OpenAI’s decision, saying that ads help to support free access to AI – something his company remains totally committed to, he said.

First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.

But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic…

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026

He then took a stab at Anthropic’s business ethics, accusing it of controlling 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,” Altman argued.

Unfortunately for Altman, his response didn’t go down too well, with a stream of comments accusing him of being just as “controlling” and “deceitful” as he claims Anthropic is:

“One authoritarian company won’t get us there.” — said the CEO who unilaterally sunsetted 4o against 47% of his users’ will.

Sam, this entire tweet is a masterclass in Psychological Projection.
You accuse Anthropic of wanting “control,” yet YOU are the one:
Locking the “Cancel… pic.twitter.com/C1uoyR0e9B

— IvanyaV (@IvanyaZhang) February 4, 2026

While Altman talks about using ads as a way to ensure everyone can access AI, the reality is that the company desperately needs to find a way to pay for its staggering bills. Last year, OpenAI inked more than $1.4 trillion worth of AI infrastructure deals in order to secure the vast computing resources needed to power its AI models, but its current revenue is nowhere near enough to be able to pay for all of those commitments.

By running ads, OpenAI hopes to generate a revenue stream that will be even more significant than its current subscription sales. No doubt, it’s inspired by the success of Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc., which both rake in billions of dollars annually from ad sales.

Anthropic also needs money to pay for its own AI infrastructure, and by foregoing ads in Claude it could miss out on a potentially lucrative revenue stream. For now, it’s focused on making money through subscriptions and enterprise contracts, though its decision doesn’t rule out a possible ad model that could sit outside Claude itself.

Image: Anthropic