Nothing says “I’m totally unbothered” quite like writing an essay-length response to a competitor’s commercial. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, just proved that when Anthropic dropped four Super Bowl ads this week, including a couple that hilariously skewered ChatGPT’s upcoming advertising plans.
The ads are pretty brilliant, actually. One shows a guy asking a chatbot (clearly meant to be ChatGPT) for advice on talking to his mom. The bot, played by a blonde woman, dishes out standard therapy-speak before pivoting hard into an ad for a cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters. Another spot features a young guy seeking fitness advice who gets served an ad for height-boosting insoles instead. Ouch.
Anthropic’s message lands clean: while ads are invading AI chatbots, they won’t be coming to Claude. It’s textbook competitive advertising, the kind we’ve seen forever in the Technology space.
The Part Where Sam Altman Lost His Cool
Altman admitted he laughed at the ads. But then he proceeded to write what can only be described as a manifesto on X, calling Anthropic “dishonest” and, wait for it, “authoritarian.” Yes, authoritarian. Over a Super Bowl commercial.
His main gripe? The ads supposedly misrepresent how OpenAI will implement advertising in ChatGPT’s free tier. According to Altman, OpenAI would never insert ads directly into conversations the way Anthropic depicted. They’ll be separate, labeled, and won’t influence the chat itself.
Here’s the thing though. OpenAI literally said on their own blog that they plan to show ads “at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation.” That’s… pretty much what the Anthropic ads suggest. Sure, maybe they won’t be as clunky or off-color as a fake cougar-dating site, but conversation-specific advertising is conversation-specific advertising.
The Pot Calling the Kettle Authoritarian
Altman went further, claiming Anthropic “serves an expensive product to rich people” while OpenAI brings AI to billions who can’t afford subscriptions. Except Claude has a free tier too, and their subscription prices are nearly identical to ChatGPT’s. Both have tiers at $0, around $20, and $200. The Business models aren’t exactly galaxies apart.
Then came the authoritarian accusation. Altman argued that Anthropic tries to control what people do with AI, blocking certain companies from using Claude Code and restricting content types. He pointed out that Anthropic markets itself on “responsible AI” and has stricter content policies.
Fair point, except OpenAI also has usage policies, guardrails, and content restrictions. They allow erotica while Anthropic doesn’t, but both companies draw lines somewhere, especially around mental health content. Calling your competitor authoritarian because they have different policies is a stretch that would make Reed Richards jealous.
Using “authoritarian” in a rant about tech advertising feels wildly out of touch, especially right now. Real authoritarian governments are literally killing protesters worldwide. This is two tech companies squabbling over market share and brand positioning. The hyperbole doesn’t just miss the mark, it’s in a different zip code.
When Marketing Gets Under Your Skin
Look, competitive ads have been around since the dawn of capitalism. Apple and Microsoft went at it. Pepsi and Coke have built entire campaigns around trolling each other. This is how the game works.
What makes this spat interesting isn’t the ads themselves. It’s that they clearly hit a nerve with Altman, revealing something uncomfortable about OpenAI’s position. ChatGPT is still the most popular chatbot by far, but introducing ads is risky. Users hate ads. Everyone knows users hate ads. OpenAI knows users hate ads, which is probably why Altman felt compelled to defend the decision so aggressively.
Anthropic saw an opening and took it. That’s not dishonest, that’s just smart marketing. They identified a vulnerability in their competitor’s strategy and exploited it with humor.
The irony is that Altman’s overreaction probably gave these ads way more attention than they would’ve gotten otherwise. Without his novella on X, this might’ve been a one-day news cycle. Instead, we’re all talking about whether OpenAI’s CEO can take a joke, and what it means when billion-dollar AI companies start slinging mud at each other like reality TV stars.
Maybe the real question isn’t whether Anthropic’s ads were fair, but why they bothered Sam Altman enough to write a dissertation in response.
