Sam Altman hits back at Anthropic over Super Bowl ad campaign

On Wednesday, AI lab Anthropic released four Super Bowl commercials—which are high-profile US television commercials—that mock OpenAI’s decision to introduce advertisements to its chatbot, ChatGPT. The commercials imply that ChatGPT will twist a conversation to insert an ad. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted on X that he laughed at the ads, but he quickly criticized the campaign. OpenAI has previously stated on the OpenAI blog that it plans to test ads at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there is a relevant sponsored product or service based on the current conversation. Altman responded to the ads by stating that OpenAI would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them, adding that they are not stupid and know their users would reject that.

Altman characterized Anthropic’s ads as dishonest for implying ChatGPT would manipulate user prompts. He also criticized Anthropic’s business model, claiming that Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people, while asserting that OpenAI feels strongly about the need to bring AI to billions of people who cannot pay for subscriptions. However, both companies offer subscription tiers for their respective chatbots, Claude and ChatGPT:

• Claude subscription tiers: $0, $17, $100, and $200.
• ChatGPT subscription tiers: $0, $8, $20, and $200. Altman further characterized Anthropic as authoritarian, claiming that Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI. As evidence, Altman stated that Anthropic blocks usage of Claude Code from companies they do not like, such as OpenAI.

This public dispute highlights a deeper philosophical divide between the two companies over AI safety, monetization, and control. Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, warned against Anthropic’s approach, writing, “One authoritarian company won’t get us there on their own, to say nothing of the other obvious risks. It is a dark path.” The use of the word authoritarian drew criticism as misplaced, particularly given a geopolitical environment where protesters around the world have been killed by agents of their own government.

Why it matters

The public spat underscores a deepening philosophical divide between OpenAI and Anthropic regarding AI monetization, safety, and the path toward mass adoption.