Anthropic just threw a punch that landed harder than anyone expected. The AI company dropped four Super Bowl commercials on Wednesday, and at least two of them were specifically designed to needle OpenAI about its recent decision to put ads in ChatGPT’s free tier. The spots are funny, sharp, and apparently effective enough to make Sam Altman lose his cool on social media.
The first ad opens with “BETRAYAL” plastered across the screen in big letters. A guy asks a chatbot that’s very obviously meant to be ChatGPT for advice on talking to his mom. The bot, played by a blonde woman, gives him some reasonable suggestions. Listen more. Take a nature walk together. Then it pivots hard into promoting a fictional cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters.
Another commercial shows a skinny young guy asking for workout advice to build a six pack. He shares his height, age, and weight. The bot serves him an ad for height-boosting insoles instead. Ouch.
When Marketing Gets Personal
The ads are a direct jab at OpenAI’s announcement that it’s bringing advertisements to ChatGPT’s free version. Media outlets immediately picked up on the drama, with headlines saying Anthropic “mocks,” “skewers,” and “dunks on” its rival. Even Altman admitted he laughed at the commercials, but that admission came wrapped in what can only be described as a social media manifesto.
Altman’s response started off acknowledging the humor, then quickly spiraled into accusations that Anthropic was being “dishonest” and “authoritarian.” That’s quite the escalation for some cheeky Technology company commercials.
He argued that OpenAI would never run ads the way Anthropic depicted them, that users would obviously reject such intrusive advertising. OpenAI has promised that ads will be separate, clearly labeled, and won’t influence conversations. But here’s the thing: OpenAI also said it plans to test ads “at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation.” That’s literally conversation-specific advertising, which is exactly what Anthropic’s ads were making fun of.
The Free Tier Defense Doesn’t Hold Up
Altman tried to position OpenAI as the company serving the masses while painting Anthropic as some elitist operation. “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.”
Except Claude also has a free tier. And when you line up the subscription options side by side, they’re remarkably similar. Claude offers plans at $0, $17, $100, and $200. ChatGPT has tiers at $0, $8, $20, and $200. The pricing structures are practically identical in business terms.
The “authoritarian” accusation is where things got really weird. Altman claimed Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI, that it blocks Claude Code usage from companies it doesn’t like (including OpenAI), and that it dictates acceptable use cases. He called it “a dark path” and warned about “one authoritarian company” controlling AI development.
This is a massive overreaction to competitive advertising. Yes, Anthropic markets itself around responsible AI and has stricter content policies in some areas. The company was founded by former OpenAI employees who left over AI safety concerns. But both companies have usage policies, guardrails, and safety restrictions. OpenAI allows erotica generation while Anthropic doesn’t, but OpenAI still blocks plenty of content, especially around mental health topics.
When Ads Hit Different
Calling a competitor “authoritarian” over a Super Bowl commercial is tactless at best, especially in a world where actual authoritarian governments are killing protesters in the streets. Companies have been taking shots at each other in ads forever. Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign made Microsoft look dorky for years. Burger King has spent decades finding creative ways to mock McDonald’s. It’s not authoritarian, it’s just capitalism with a sense of humor.
What makes this situation fascinating is how deeply Anthropic’s ads got under Altman’s skin. The commercials clearly struck a nerve because they highlighted something uncomfortable: that putting ads in an AI chatbot, no matter how carefully implemented, fundamentally changes the relationship between user and tool. When a chatbot serves you information, you want to trust it’s giving you the best answer, not the answer that happens to have a sponsor attached.
OpenAI can promise all day that ads won’t influence responses, but the moment you see an advertisement connected to your conversation, doubt creeps in. Did it recommend that restaurant because it’s actually good, or because someone paid for placement? The skepticism is automatic and probably impossible to eliminate entirely.
Anthropic’s marketing team understood this anxiety perfectly and weaponized it in 30-second spots that made people laugh while making OpenAI’s news about ads look questionable. And judging by the length and tone of Altman’s response, it worked better than anyone at Anthropic probably hoped. When your competitor writes an essay calling you dishonest and authoritarian because of your Super Bowl commercials, you’ve already won the PR battle.
