On Wednesday (local time), the rivalry between two leading U.S. artificial intelligence firms, OpenAI and Anthropic, took a more intense turn. During the Super Bowl broadcast, Anthropic rolled out an ad that humorously ridiculed OpenAI’s plan to introduce advertisements for ChatGPT, highlighting that its own product, Claude, remains “ad-free.” In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman swiftly reacted, describing Anthropic’s ad as “hilarious” but also criticizing it for its “blatantly dishonest” depiction of OpenAI’s advertising model. Seizing the moment, Altman also promoted OpenAI’s commitment to free access and its developer tools.

Altman further accused Anthropic of catering to the wealthy with its high-priced offerings and displaying a tendency toward “control”—such as limiting companies from using its coding tools and attempting to set unilateral rules for AI usage. Additionally, Altman previewed the content of OpenAI’s own Super Bowl ad, announced that the Codex app had reached 500,000 downloads, and reaffirmed OpenAI’s dedication to providing affordable AI services to users.