- Sam Altman publicly criticized Anthropic for Super Bowl ads that mocked ChatGPT’s new ad-supported tier.
- Anthropic’s commercials showed AI assistants interrupting serious conversations with product presentations.
- The dispute underscores growing tension over how AI companies monetize their platforms without losing users’ trust.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is raising his own penalty flag over rival AI developer Anthropic’s set of Super Bowl commercials that appear to take direct aim at ChatGPT’s new ad-supported tier.
Anthropic’s “A Time and a Place” campaign ads show AI assistants interrupting emotionally vulnerable moments with sudden sales presentations of imaginary products. The joke is clearly supposed to be about OpenAI for ChatGPT’s advertising plans, while promising that Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude won’t do the same.
Altman did not find the implication charming. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), he accused Anthropic of sending “clearly dishonest” messages. He suggested that the company had crossed a line by implying that ChatGPT would inject ads into tips or answers. Despite saying he found the ads funny, he accused Anthropic of being “authoritarian” and “serving an expensive product to the rich.”
It’s been a few weeks since OpenAI started testing ads on a lower-cost version of ChatGPT. The company said these ads would appear at the bottom of responses, clearly labeled, and would not infiltrate the content of the chatbot’s responses.
Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads mock the idea of a non-intrusive AI ad. One commercial shows a user seeking help communicating with his mother, only to have his AI assistant, played by an actress in a therapist-style chair, become an enthusiastic endorser of a fictional dating service called Golden Encounters. Another ad features a serious fitness inquiry that dissolves into a speech about height-increasing shoe insoles.
Anthropic plans to run the ads nationally during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast and it will likely be a fun moment that most people forget at the next touchdown.
Altman, however, clearly won’t be moving forward that quickly. It’s not even his first fight on social media this year. Elon Musk sparked similar ire when the owner of xAI suggested that ChatGPT is too insecure to use.
First, the good thing about Anthropic’s ads: they’re funny and I laughed. But I wonder why Anthropic would opt for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; Obviously, we would never run ads in Anthropic mode…February 4, 2026
AI advertising battle
Behind the public criticism is a heated debate about how to make AI chatbots profitable. OpenAI is exploring generating revenue from the free and low-cost tiers of ChatGPT. But Anthropic’s strategy appears more dependent on business and corporate deals.
If it can position Claude as an alternative to the ad-supported ChatGPT approach, it could entice users who fear ads appearing in another facet of their digital lives to choose Claude over ChatGPT.
People may not follow AI research or model development, but they certainly understand the ads and are tired of them. OpenAI and Anthropic know this, which is part of the reason Altman is responding so sharply.
The distinction between “ads below replies” and “ads within replies” isn’t critical for a 30-second commercial, but it’s everything to Altman and his team as they try to increase revenue and trust in ChatGPT. Anthropic’s ads may be over-the-top satire, but Altman’s reaction shows how sensitive OpenAI is to accusations that they are undermining that trust in the pursuit of revenue. And many of the responses to Altman demonstrated exactly that.
Wrong answer, Sam. The reason Anthropic’s satirical ads went viral is precisely because public trust in you and OpenAI has already hit rock bottom in recent months. The people you should respond to are your users. You should apologize to them for ignoring their…February 5, 2026
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