OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Altman Responds to Anthropic’s Provocative Ads

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, sharply responded to an advertising campaign by rival company Anthropic that was set to air during the Super Bowl. Altman called the ads funny, but also "clearly dishonest".

Anthropic's controversial ads

Anthropic, the creator of the Claude chatbot, released four commercials on Wednesday that are set to air during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The campaign directly attacks OpenAI's decision to introduce ads into ChatGPT. The campaign's main slogan is: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude."

The ads show an actor playing a fictional version of a chatbot who suddenly interrupts the response during a conversation to promote a product. In one of the spots, a user asks for advice on how to quickly get visible abs, and after answering, the chatbot suddenly suggests buying specific shoe inserts that will help them look taller, including a discount code.

Altman's sharp response

Altman admitted that the ads made him laugh, but also called them misleading. "I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest," Altman wrote Wednesday 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 portrays them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that." Altman added: "I think this is typical of Anthropic—using deceptive advertising to criticize theoretical deceptive ads that are not real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would have expected it."

Ads in ChatGPT

In January, OpenAI announced that it would begin testing ads with free users and ChatGPT Go subscribers in the US. The company said the ads would be clearly labeled, appear at the end of chatbot responses, and would not influence ChatGPT's responses.

In his post, Altman emphasized that OpenAI believes everyone deserves to use AI and is committed to free access, because access creates opportunity. "More Texans use ChatGPT for free than the total number of people who use Claude in the US, so we have a differently structured problem than they do," Altman said. He added that users who pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro will not see any ads.

"Anthropic provides an expensive product to rich people," Altman declared. "We are glad they do that, and we do it too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who cannot afford a subscription."

Accusations of authoritarianism

Altman went even further in his criticism and accused Anthropic of wanting to control how people use AI. "Anthropic wants to control what people do with AI—they block companies they don't like from using their product for coding (including us), they want to write the rules themselves for what people can and cannot use AI for, and now they also want to tell other companies what business models they can have," Altman wrote.

"We are committed to broad, democratic decision-making in addition to access," the OpenAI chief emphasized. "We are also committed to building the most resilient ecosystem for advanced AI. We care deeply about safe, broadly beneficial AGI (artificial general intelligence), and we know the only way to get there is to work with the world to prepare." Altman warned: "One authoritarian company will not get us there on its own, not to mention the other obvious risks. It is a dark path."

OpenAI and Codex

Regarding OpenAI's own Super Bowl commercial, Altman said that "it is about builders and how anyone can now build anything." OpenAI is excited that so many people are switching to Codex. "Since Monday's launch, 500,000 apps have been downloaded, and we think builders are really going to love what is coming over the next few weeks. I believe Codex will win," Altman wrote. "We will continue working hard to make even more intelligence available to our users at ever-lower prices," Altman concluded. "This era belongs to builders, not to people who want to control them."

Background to the rivalry

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI researchers who left the company due to disagreements over its direction. The two startups have been fierce rivals since Anthropic was founded, and both have raised billions of dollars in capital while competing for users, enterprise customers, and market share. OpenAI offers individual ChatGPT plans ranging from free to CZK 5,200 per month. Anthropic's individual Claude plans range from free to CZK 2,600 per month. Both companies also offer team and enterprise plans.

Additional sources: businessinsider.com and cnbc.com