A new age, they said, would dawn upon humankind with the advent of
artificial intelligence. What has not changed, however, is the familiar corporate instinct to dominate markets, outspend rivals and publicly take digs at competitors. That is exactly what Sam Altman’s OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, and
Anthropic’s Claude appear to be engaged in.
As the two companies race to win users and credibility, they have turned to one of the oldest tools in corporate rivalry: tongue-in-cheek advertising that takes pointed shots at the competition. The pattern is familiar from earlier battles between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Samsung and Apple, or BlackBerry and Nokia. This time, the brand sparring is not over fizzy drinks or smartphones, but over how artificial intelligence itself should be funded, marketed and trusted.
How Anthropic’s Claude takes a dig at OpenAI’s ad plans
Anthropic has released four 61-second commercials on YouTube, one of which features a man in a park asking for fitness advice. The response begins in a stiff, robotic tone resembling an AI chatbot explanation, before abruptly turning into a sales pitch for shoe insoles.
The screen then cuts to a clear message: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”
The ad does not mention OpenAI or ChatGPT by name, but the reference is widely understood. Anthropic has also released three other ads using similar scenarios, where AI-style conversations suddenly veer into product promotions.
In the other three ads, situations involving a student and professor, a son speaking to a therapist, and a woman asking for a business idea are presented, each ending with the same message that ads may be coming to AI, but Claude will not run them.
Why Anthropic is targeting ads inside AI chatbots
According to OpenAI, the ads will be clearly labelled, appear at the bottom of responses, and will not influence how ChatGPT answers user questions. The company has also said ads will not appear for sensitive topics such as politics and mental health, users can opt out of personalisation, and minors will not be shown ads.
Anthropic, however, is drawing a clear contrast. In a blog post released alongside the campaign, the company said advertising, once introduced, usually tends to expand over time and can shape product decisions and engagement goals.
The company said it wants Claude to remain “unambiguously” aligned with users’ interests rather than external commercial incentives.
How much money is at stake in AI advertising
Advertising is becoming increasingly important as AI companies ramp up spending. OpenAI has signed infrastructure deals worth more than $1.4 trillion in 2025, making new revenue streams a priority, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Digital advertising has long been a major revenue source for companies such as Google and Meta, and OpenAI has indicated that ads could help support its scale.
At the same time, AI companies are already spending heavily to market themselves. Industry estimates show that tech companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Perplexity spent $333.6 million on US broadcast television ads for AI products last year, a 43 per cent rise year on year. Digital ad spending more than tripled to $426 million, the WSJ reported.
Super Bowl airtime alone costs more than $8 million for a 30-second slot, excluding production costs.
How Sam Altman responded to the Claude ads
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman responded to the campaign by saying he laughed at the ads, while questioning Anthropic’s “clearly dishonest portrayal” of what OpenAI plans to do.
On Wednesday (February 4), Altman posted on X: “Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them.” He added, “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”
Why AI companies are advertising at the Super Bowl
The competitive fight between artificial intelligence companies has entered a new phase, public, expensive and unmistakably commercial.
This year’s Super Bowl, scheduled to begin on February 8, will feature advertisements from both Anthropic and OpenAI, marking a moment when AI companies are no longer just selling products to businesses and developers, but are directly courting mass-market users.
The Super Bowl draws massive viewership, often exceeding 120 million people in the US, making it one of the largest live television audiences annually and prime advertising real estate despite the high costs.
For Anthropic, the Super Bowl debut is also a strategic statement. Its advertising campaign implicitly targets OpenAI over plans to introduce advertising inside ChatGPT conversations, without naming the rival directly.
The move echoes classic marketing battles seen earlier in industries such as soft drinks, smartphones and telecom, where rivals publicly spar through high-profile ad campaigns.
Where Anthropic stands compared to OpenAI
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including chief executive Dario Amodei. It is best known for its Claude family of AI models and its coding-focused tool Claude Code, which has seen rapid adoption in recent months.
The company is significantly smaller than OpenAI, which says it has more than 800 million weekly active users. However, Anthropic has gained traction with enterprise customers, partly due to Claude’s performance in coding-related tasks.
Since September, Anthropic has been advertising under the slogan “Keep Thinking”, positioning Claude as a partner for complex problem-solving rather than a replacement for human thinking.
As AI tools move closer to everyday consumer use, questions around monetisation, advertising and user alignment are increasingly shaping how companies differentiate themselves, and how they sell that difference to the public.
 "Claude vs ChatGPT: Anthropic mocks OpenAI's ad plans at the Super Bowl")
