Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads Julie Bort 4:45 PM PST · February 4, 2026 Anthropic’s Super Bowl commercial, one of four ads the AI lab dropped on Wednesday , begins with the word “BETRAYAL” splashed boldly across the screen. The camera pans to a man earnestly asking a chatbot (obviously intended to depict ChatGPT) for advice on how to talk to his mom.
The bot, portrayed by a blonde woman, offers some classic bits of advice. Start by listening. Try a nature walk! And then twists into an ad for a fictitious (we hope!) cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters. Anthropic finishes the spot by saying that while ads are coming to AI, they won’t be coming to its own chatbot, Claude.
Another commercial features a slight young man looking for advice on building a six pack. After offering his height, age, and weight, the bot serves him an ad for height-boosting insoles.
The Anthropic commercials are cleverly aimed at OpenAI’s users, after that company’s recent announcement that ads will be coming to ChatGPT’s free tier. And they caused an immediate stir, spawning headlines that Anthropic “mocks,” “skewers,” and “dunks on” OpenAI.
They are funny enough that even Sam Altman admitted on X that he laughed at them. But he clearly didn’t really find them funny. They inspired him to write a novella-sized rant that devolved into calling his rival “dishonest” and “authoritarian.”
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…
In that post, Altman explains that an ad-supported tier is intended to shoulder the burden of offering free ChatGPT to many of its millions of users. ChatGPT is still the most popular chatbot by a large margin .
But the OpenAI CEO insisted the ads were “dishonest” in implying that ChatGPT will twist a conversation to insert an ad (and possibly for an off-color product, to boot).”We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them,” Altman wrote in the social media post. “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”
Techcrunch event TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston , more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. TechCrunch Founder Summit: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston , more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately Save up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. Boston, MA | June 23, 2026 REGISTER NOW Indeed, OpenAI has promised ads will be separate, labeled, and will never influence a chat. But the company has also said it is planning on making them conversation-specific — which is the central allegation of Anthropic’s ads. As OpenAI explained on its blog, “We plan to test ads at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation.”
Altman then went on to fling some equally questionable assertions at his rival. “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people,” he wrote. “We also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.”
But Claude has a free chat tier, too, with subscriptions at $0, $17, $100, and $200. ChatGPT’s tiers are $0, $8, $20, and $200. One could argue the subscription tiers are fairly equivalent.
Altman also alleged in his post that “Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI.” He argues it blocks usage of Claude Code from “companies they don’t like,” like OpenAI, and said Anthropic tells people what they can and can’t use AI for.
True, Anthropic’s whole marketing deal since day one has been “responsible AI.” The company was founded by two former OpenAI alums, after all , who claimed they grew alarmed about AI safety when they worked there.
Still, both chatbot companies have usage policies , AI guardrails, and talk about AI safety. And while OpenAI allows ChatGPT to be used for erotica while Anthropic does not , OpenAI, like Anthropic, has determined that some content should be blocked , particularly in regards to mental health.
Yet Altman took this Anthropic-tells-you-what-to-do argument to an extreme level when he accused Anthropic of being “authoritarian.”
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