Altman vs Anthropic: ChatGPT Campaign Fury

The gloves have fallen between the two giants of conversational artificial intelligence.

A few weeks after OpenAI announced the upcoming integration of advertisements in the free versions of ChatGPT – a turnaround for Sam Altman who once spoke of a “last resort” – Anthropic on Wednesday unveiled a series of television spots aimed at the Super Bowl that openly ridicule the decision. The message is unequivocal: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude”.

Absurd advertisements to mock OpenAI

These ads depict absurd situations, where an artificial assistant suddenly drifts from useful advice to grotesque product placement. In one of the spots, a man asking how to sculpt his abs is interrupted by an ad for orthopedic insoles. In another, a question about communicating with his mother triggers the appearance of an ad for a dating site between “sensitive cubs and roaring cougars”.

Here are some examples:

Sam Altman’s scathing counterattack

On X, Sam Altman reacted with unusual virulence for a business leader of this stature. While conceding that Anthropic’s advertisements are “funny”he immediately qualifies them as “clearly dishonest”. According to him, OpenAI “would obviously never display ads the way Anthropic depicts them”. “We are not stupid and we know our users would reject this”he adds.

But it is above all the political accusation that is surprising. Altman criticizes his competitor for wanting “control what people do with AI”pointing out Anthropic’s blocking of certain companies, including OpenAI itself, in the use of their development tools. “Anthropic serves an expensive product to the rich”he writes, before adding: “An authoritarian company will not get us there alone […] It’s a dark path.”

The boss of OpenAI defends his advertising strategy as the only way to guarantee massive free access to artificial intelligence. “More Texans use ChatGPT for free than the total number of people using Claude in the United States”he asserts. The numbers speak for themselves: ChatGPT claimed 800 million weekly active users worldwide in October 2025, compared to just 18.9 million monthly active users for Claude. A colossal gap which justifies, according to Altman, the use of advertising to maintain the free service. He adds that the Codex application has recorded 500,000 downloads since its launch on Monday.

Beyond the scandal, this quarrel clearly opposes two irreconcilable visions of the monetization of conversational AI: Anthropic refuses advertising and relies on paid subscriptions, OpenAI accepts it to keep a free version accessible. But here it is: Anthropic has an interest in keeping its word, otherwise it will lose all credibility with its subscribers.

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