In the latest chapter of Anthropic’s «We’re not like the other guys» campaign, the AI company is pledging not to introduce advertisements into conversations with its chatbot, Claude. And it’s spending big on Super Bowl ads to make sure you know that fact.
Anthropic’s announcement takes a clear shot at competitor OpenAI. The ChatGPT-maker said a few weeks ago that it would begin testing ads in its products that will be «clearly marked» as sponsored posts. The company also said that ads wouldn’t be served around sensitive or regulated topics, like mental health and politics.
The news was a stark reversal from previous statements — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had called ads a «last resort» in 2024. But it wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the general chaos of the AI industry’s financing.
For a long time, AI startups operated at a loss, spending billions of dollars from venture capitalists and others to build their chatbots without turning a profit. OpenAI and many others now have a complex web of circular deals to keep the lights on, but newer advanced models require more compute, better chips and generally more maintenance and money to keep up. Anthropic certainly isn’t immune to these financial pressures; the company is the the process of securing a new $10 billion funding deal.
That’s why AI companies are seeking new revenue streams. Hence the ads.
The concern with including ads in chatbots (beyond general irritation) is that it will push products at the expense of helping users. There’s also the risk that tech companies will prioritize advertising metrics and revenue over safety or user autonomy. Anthropic wrote, «Users shouldn’t have to second-guess whether an AI is genuinely helping them or subtly steering the conversation towards something monetizable.»
In a lengthy post on X, Altman said he found the ads funny but felt they mischaracterized the company’s approach to advertising. «We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that,» he wrote.
Anthropic, for its part, has been very outspoken about the risks posed by AI technology, so it’s not surprising to hear the company weigh in on this issue. CEO Dario Amodei has spoken at length about the potential threat that AI systems may pose to humanity.
But we have a wealth of examples to draw on — streaming services, smart TVs and now chatbots — where tech companies tried and eventually failed to resist the allure of advertiser money. We can never say never. Anthropic didn’t.