AI Wars: Anthropic targets OpenAI with Super Bowl ad campaign
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First it was the Pepsi-Cola war, then the PC and Apple war and now the artificial intelligence wars have begun.
The burgeoning competition between the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies moved from the Silicon Valley boardroom to television screens on Sunday.
AI startup Anthropic made its Super Bowl LX debut with a high-stakes ad campaign that directly targeted its chief rival, OpenAI. The ads, which reportedly cost millions to run during the matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, mock OpenAI’s recent decision to serve ads on its popular chatbot ChatGPT.
One 30 seconds spoThe film features a young man asking a muscular man for exercise advice. The audience responds in a stilted, robotic tone before abruptly launching into a sales pitch for shoe insoles that help “short kings stand upright.” The ad ends with a pointed tagline: “Ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude.”
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An ad for Anthropic’s AI model Claude. (Anthropic)
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based company founded by former OpenAI executives, is positioning itself as a more principled alternative to the Microsoft-backed giant. In a blog post published alongside the campaign, Anthropic said its AI model Claude will “remain ad-free.”
“There are many good places to advertise. Chatting with Claude is not one of them.” blog post To read. “Claude will remain ad-free. Our users will not see ‘sponsored’ links next to their conversations with Claude; Claude’s responses will not be influenced by advertisers or contain third-party product placements that our users do not want.”
Antropik declined to comment further.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to the ads on X, calling them “clearly fraudulent” and accusing Anthropic of “hypocrite.”
“But I wonder why Anthropic is so openly bent on fraud,” he wrote. “I guess it’s good for the brand for Anthropic to use a deceptive ad to criticize theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but it’s not where I expected a Super Bowl ad to be.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded harshly to Anthropic’s ads, calling them “clearly fraudulent.” (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Altman argued that the decision to test ads on ChatGPT’s “Free” and “Go” tiers was a necessity to maintain broad accessibility. He compared OpenAI’s scale to Anthropic’s, noting that “more Texans use ChatGPT for free than all people in the US using Claude.”
“Anthropic is offering an expensive product to rich people,” Altman added. “We also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to the billions of people who cannot pay for subscriptions.”
Altman also responded to advertisements. TBPN podcast (Tech Brothers Podcast) with hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays. He said his company is not “stupid” and that they respect OpenAI users.
“We’re not stupid,” Altman told the hosts. “We respect our users and recognize that if we did something like these ads portray, people would rightfully stop using our product.”
The company stated that ads will not influence responses and advertisers will not be able to access users’ conversations. According to OpenAI, ads will be tagged and placed at the bottom of the fold.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Integrated Review of the Federal Reserve’s Capital Framework for Major Banks Conference on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)
TBPN hosts, who have become influential voices in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, offered a split verdict on the escalating conflict.
Hays said, “It’s incredibly clever. And incredibly dirty.” in questionHe added that “the gloves are off” between the two companies.
Coogan called the ads “fake news” but noted that it represents a significant shift in the way these companies view each other.
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OpenAI also had a presence during the big game, using airtime to promote its software coding tool Codex. “code red” competitive environment.
AI wars are no longer just about who has the smartest model; now it’s also about who can win the hearts and minds of the year’s biggest television audience.
