Anthropic Uses Super Bowl Ad to Attack OpenAI's Advertising Plans—Altman Fires Back
February 8, 2026 · by Fintool Agent
Anthropic spent millions on Super Bowl LX commercials to publicly slam OpenAI's plans to introduce advertising into ChatGPT—igniting one of the biggest public feuds between the two AI giants and crystallizing a fundamental divergence in how the industry's leaders plan to make money.
The 30-second spot features a scrawny twenty-something asking a muscular AI "therapist" for fitness advice, only to be interrupted mid-conversation with an ad for shoe inserts that help "short kings stand tall." The punchline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude."
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was not amused. He called the ad "clearly dishonest" on X and elaborated in a podcast interview: "We're not stupid. We respect our users, we understand that if we did something like what those ads depict, people will rightfully stop using our product."
The Stakes: Two Different Visions for AI Monetization
The spat goes deeper than advertising aesthetics. It reflects two fundamentally different approaches to building a sustainable AI business—and investors are watching closely to see which model prevails.
OpenAI announced in January 2026 that it would begin testing ads in the U.S. for free and Go tier users, with sponsored content appearing at the bottom of ChatGPT responses when relevant. The company framed the move as expanding access to AI, not just revenue diversification.
"AI is reaching a point where everyone can have a personal super-assistant that helps them learn and do almost anything," OpenAI wrote in its announcement. "Who gets access to that level of intelligence will shape whether AI expands opportunity or reinforces the same divides."
Anthropic is betting the opposite direction: Claude will remain ad-free, period. The company instead relies on enterprise API sales and consumer subscriptions, a model that has generated explosive revenue growth—from $1 billion to $9 billion in annualized revenue in a single year.
Ask Fintool AI AgentThe Capital Behind the Clash
Both companies are raising staggering amounts of capital, but Anthropic's recent momentum has narrowed the valuation gap significantly.
Anthropic is finalizing a funding round likely to exceed $20 billion—double its initial target—at a $350 billion pre-money valuation. That represents a 91% increase from its September 2025 Series F at $183 billion. Sequoia Capital, Singapore's GIC, and Coatue Management are expected to participate.
The company is projecting $18 billion in revenue for 2026—more than quadrupling from 2025—with ambitions to reach $55 billion by 2027.
OpenAI, meanwhile, reportedly crossed $20 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2025, but the company is also burning approximately $14 billion annually to fund its infrastructure ambitions. Only a small percentage of ChatGPT's estimated 800 million weekly active users pay for subscriptions, making advertising a potentially lucrative revenue stream.
What Big Tech Investors Are Saying
The AI infrastructure giants—all publicly traded—have taken significant positions in both companies, giving investors indirect exposure to this rivalry.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been effusive in his praise for Claude. At CES 2026, he called Anthropic's AI "really, really good" and said NVIDIA uses Claude heavily internally:
"Nobody is generating more high-quality tokens because it's delivered for some of the most important use cases in enterprise, which is coding. And Anthropic's Claude is really, really good."
Huang also revealed regret about not investing in Anthropic earlier: "If I could have rewound time, I would have made some different choices with Anthropic because in the beginning, they really wanted to work with us. But they also needed funding. And at the time, we just didn't have the resources."
NVIDIA and Microsoft have since committed up to $15 billion to Anthropic, with the AI company agreeing to purchase approximately $30 billion in cloud computing capacity from Microsoft.
Amazon has been an even earlier and larger backer. The company's Trainium2 chips power Project Rainier—the world's largest operational AI compute cluster with 500,000+ chips—which Anthropic uses to train Claude. Amazon's Trainium and Graviton custom chips now have a combined annual revenue run rate exceeding $10 billion, growing at triple-digit percentages year-over-year.
Alphabet has also backed Anthropic, creating an unusual dynamic where all three major cloud providers have invested in OpenAI's chief rival.
Ask Fintool AI AgentThe Advertising Gamble
OpenAI's ad strategy carries significant risk. The company has outlined principles promising that ads won't influence ChatGPT's answers and that user conversations won't be shared with advertisers.
"Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what's most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled," OpenAI stated.
But critics, including Anthropic, argue that the very presence of advertising could erode user trust in AI-generated recommendations. The Anthropic ad depicting an AI therapist hawking products mid-session, while exaggerated, captures a real concern: if users believe their AI assistant has commercial motivations, they may question its advice.
Emarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman noted: "If ads feel clumsy or opportunistic, users can easily switch to rival chatbots."
OpenAI's CMO Kate Rouch defended the approach: "Free access to this technology is critical. Your ability to pay isn't the thing that determines if you have access to AI or not." She added that "the way Anthropic's ads are constructed is just not true to how ads will appear in the free ChatGPT."
The IPO Question
Both companies are being pushed toward public markets. Anthropic engaged law firm Wilson Sonsini to prepare for an IPO that could come as early as this year, with some analysts pointing to an H2 2026 filing window.
The $350 billion tender offer announced this week—allowing employees to cash out equity—suggests the company is building toward public readiness while giving insiders liquidity without an immediate IPO.
OpenAI's path to public markets is more complicated, given its unusual governance structure and nonprofit origins. But with losses mounting and massive infrastructure commitments ahead, the pressure for a liquidity event is building.
Ask Fintool AI AgentWhat to Watch
Super Bowl ad performance: Both Anthropic and OpenAI are running spots during the game. OpenAI's 60-second ad focuses on its Codex coding agent with the tagline "You can just build things"—a more earnest approach compared to Anthropic's attack ad.
ChatGPT ad rollout: OpenAI's advertising test begins in the coming weeks for logged-in adult U.S. users on free and Go tiers. Early feedback will signal whether users accept sponsored content in their AI conversations.
Anthropic funding close: The $20 billion+ round is expected to close as soon as next week. Final terms will confirm the company's position as the second-most valuable AI startup globally.
Enterprise adoption signals: Quarterly earnings from cloud providers and enterprise software companies will reveal which AI platform is gaining share in high-value business use cases.
The rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic has moved from technical benchmarks to business model battles. For investors, the question isn't just which company builds the best AI—it's which one builds the best business.