OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just turned a Super Bowl ad spat into a full-blown AI industry brawl. What started as Anthropic's cheeky commercials mocking ChatGPT's upcoming ads escalated into Altman posting a lengthy X rant calling his rival "dishonest" and "authoritarian" - strong words for what's essentially clever competitive advertising. The public meltdown reveals just how raw the competition has become between the two AI giants, especially as OpenAI prepares to introduce ads to ChatGPT's free tier while Anthropic pledges to keep Claude ad-free.
Anthropic just lobbed a marketing grenade into the AI wars, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman clearly felt the blast. The challenger AI lab dropped four Super Bowl commercials Wednesday, each one taking pointed jabs at ChatGPT's recently announced plan to introduce advertising. What should have been a routine competitive marketing play instead triggered an unusually emotional public response from one of tech's most visible founders.
The most striking ad opens with the word "BETRAYAL" splashed across the screen. A man asks a chatbot - obviously meant to represent ChatGPT - for advice on talking to his mom. The bot, portrayed by a blonde woman, offers reasonable suggestions like listening and taking nature walks. Then it pivots to hawking a fictitious cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters. Another spot shows a young man seeking fitness advice only to get served ads for height-boosting insoles. The tagline: while ads are coming to AI, they won't be coming to Claude.
The commercials immediately sparked headlines across tech media, with outlets saying Anthropic "mocks," "skewers" and "dunks" on OpenAI. Even Altman admitted on X that he laughed at them. But that admission came as the opening line of what became a novella-length counter-attack.
