Overview
- Anthropic aired a 30‑second in‑game spot and a longer pregame ad built around the line “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” parodying intrusive product pitches during sensitive conversations.
- Alongside the campaign, Anthropic pledged that Claude will not show sponsored links or advertiser‑influenced responses and said it will fund the service through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions, noting it could revisit the stance transparently if needed.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called the ads “clearly dishonest” on X, arguing OpenAI would never insert ads into the chat text as depicted and criticizing Anthropic’s positioning.
- OpenAI says ads for U.S. free and $8 Go users will appear below responses, be clearly labeled, exclude minors and sensitive topics, and offer opt‑outs for personalization, with Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users remaining ad‑free.
- The clash highlights competing monetization strategies for consumer AI assistants as analysts project AI ad spending could approach $26 billion by 2029 and policymakers scrutinize conversational advertising formats.