Sam Altman Pans Anthropic Super Bowl Ad, Defends ChatGPT Ad Model
By Siddharth Jindal ·
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has criticised Anthropic over its recent Super Bowl advertisement, accusing the company of misrepresenting how ads would work in AI products.
Anthropic recently ran a Super Bowl campaign promoting its AI assistant Claude, while highlighting its stance against in-product advertising. Altman suggested the messaging was misleading, calling it “a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real.”
In a post on X, Altman said that while the Anthropic ad was “funny,” it portrayed a scenario that does not reflect how OpenAI approaches advertising.
“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 wrote. “We are not stupid, and we know our users would reject that.”
https://youtu.be/FBSam25u8O4
Altman contrasted Anthropic’s approach with OpenAI’s emphasis on free access. “We believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency,” he said. He added that more people in Texas use ChatGPT for free than the total number of Claude users in the US.
He also argued that Anthropic’s business model limits reach. “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people,” Altman said, adding that while OpenAI also offers paid plans, the goal is to make AI available to users who cannot afford subscriptions. OpenAI does not show ads to users on its Plus or Pro plans, he noted.
Altman further accused Anthropic of attempting to control how AI tools are used. He said the company blocks certain organisations, including OpenAI, from accessing its coding products and seeks to define acceptable use cases for AI.
“They want to write the rules themselves for what people can and can’t use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what their business models can be,” he wrote.
Addressing OpenAI’s own Super Bowl advertising, Altman said the campaign focused on builders and access. “It’s about builders, and how anyone can now build anything,” he said.
Altman also highlighted early traction for OpenAI’s new coding product, Codex. “There have now been 500,000 app downloads since launch on Monday,” he said, adding that usage has increased as developers switch tools.
The entrepreneur concluded OpenAI would continue to lower the cost of advanced AI systems. “This time belongs to the builders, not the people who want to control them,” he wrote.