The Super Bowl became a battleground for artificial intelligence this year as Anthropic aired ads that directly criticised the concept of advertising within ChatGPT, drawing an immediate and sharp response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
One of Anthropic’s high-profile ads opens with the word “betrayal” and depicts a fictional therapy session, where the AI therapist initially offers emotional guidance before abruptly switching to a dating advertisement. The commercial concludes with the line, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude. Keep thinking.”
The campaign positions Anthropic’s chatbot Claude as entirely ad-free, contrasting it with growing concerns over AI advertising, privacy, and trust issues that are dominating current discussions in the tech world.
The moment quickly became a talking point in conversations around AI and ChatGPT advertising.
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
Altman responded on X, calling the ads funny but misleading. He clarified that OpenAI has no plans to place ads inside ChatGPT in the manner suggested and accused Anthropic of using deceptive messaging to attack a scenario that does not exist.
He emphasised that OpenAI focuses on free access, arguing that widespread availability gives users greater agency. Altman also claimed that Anthropic targets a premium product aimed at wealthy users and accused the company of attempting to control how AI is used, citing restrictions on its coding tools and past attempts to block OpenAI’s API access.
Altman further contrasted Anthropic’s approach with OpenAI’s own Super Bowl ad, which highlighted builders, creativity, and innovation in the AI space, reinforcing OpenAI’s message of empowerment and accessibility.
