Sam Altman hits back after Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad

Anthropic sparked fresh debate during the Super Bowl by airing ads that criticise the idea of advertising inside ChatGPT, drawing a sharp response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The moment quickly became a talking point in the artificial intelligence and ChatGPT ads conversation.

One of Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads opens with the word “betrayal” and shows a fictional therapy session. The AI therapist initially offers emotional advice before abruptly switching to a dating advert.

The message ends with the line, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude. Keep thinking.” The campaign positions Anthropic’s chatbot Claude as ad-free, contrasting it with fears around AI advertising and data use. The ad taps into growing concerns about AI, privacy and trust, key SEO keywords shaping the current tech debate.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X, calling the ads funny but misleading. He said OpenAI would never place ads inside ChatGPT in the way shown. Altman accused Anthropic of being dishonest and using deceptive messaging to attack a scenario that does not exist.

He added that OpenAI focuses on free access, arguing that scale and accessibility give people more agency. Altman also claimed Anthropic serves an expensive product aimed at wealthy users.

Altman further accused Anthropic of trying to control how AI is used, pointing to restrictions on its coding tools and past moves to block OpenAI’s API access. He contrasted this with OpenAI’s own Super Bowl ad, which highlighted builders and creativity.