Battle of the chatbots: Anthropic and OpenAI go head-to-head over ads in their AI products | AI (artificial intelligence)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/07/ai-chatbots-anthropic-openai-claude-chatgpt
Publish Date: 2026-02-07 11:02:00
Source Domain: www.theguardian.com
The Seahawks and the Patriots aren’t the only ones gearing up for a fight.
AI rivals Anthropic and OpenAI have launched a war of ads trying to court corporate America during one of the biggest entertainment nights of the year.
Ahead of the Super Bowl, Anthropic has launched a series of ads going hard at its rival.
For the scrawny 23-year-old who wants a six-pack, a ripped older man who is supposed to depict a chatbot suggests insoles that “help short kings stand tall” because “confidence isn’t just built in the gym”. And for the man trying to improve communication with his mom: his therapist prescribes “a mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars” in case he can’t fix that relationship.
All four ads end with the same tagline: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.” There’s no explicit mention of ChatGPT, but the subtext is clear.
Even Sam Altman laughed. But he also called the ads “so clearly dishonest” before diving into a lengthy critique 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,” Altman wrote. “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”
Altman stressed that OpenAI’s decision to include ads, announced last month, makes the product more accessible. “We believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access,” he wrote. And Altman didn’t shy away from taking some shots of his own. “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions,” he wrote. (Claude has a free subscription version, too.)
ChatGPT’s ad policy is not live yet, but OpenAI maintains on its website that ads will be “separate and clearly labeled” and won’t influence the answers users see. The company also states that it will not…
