By now you’ve seen Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad for Claude, right? If not, watch it here.
- The commercial begins with the word “BETRAYAL” written across the screen, and then features a man asking ChatGPT for advice on how to talk to his mom.
- The chatbot, depicted by a middle-aged blonde woman, starts by offering some decent advice like “start by listening” or “go on a nature walk.”
- Then she suddenly pivots into an advertisement, recommending that he find emotional connection with other older women on a fictitious dating website called Golden Encounters.
- The commercial finishes by saying “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”
Anthropic also released three other commercials including:
- VIOLATION: A man asking ChatGPT how to get a six-pack. The chatbot begins creating a personalized workout plan for him, and then pivots to ad-mode and pitches shoe insoles for “short kings.”
- DECEPTION: A woman asks ChatGPT for feedback on her business idea. The chatbot tells her it’s a great idea and offers to create a business plan. Then it pivots into an ad for Quick Dash Payday Loans because “girl bosses need SHE-E-O money quick.”
- TREACHERY: A student asks ChatGPT if her essay is making a clear argument. The chatbot praises her argument and essay, and then pivots into ad-mode for a jewelry store, telling her to “cherish this unforgettable occasion” of her essay being due.
These are some of the best ads attacking a competitor that I’ve seen in a long time! I love a good company-vs-company beef. However not everyone appreciated the commercials as much as me.
Sam Altman posted a 2,306 character rant on X, which I’ll highlight quotes from below:
- “First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.”
- “But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.”
- “More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access, because we believe access creates agency. More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the US, so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do.”
- “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.”
What’s funny about his response (but not as funny as Anthropic’s videos) is that he criticizes Anthropic for “serving an expensive product to rich people,” which I assume he’s referencing their enterprise-focused business model, while simultaneously building out his enterprise division to compete with them in the space!
Read the replies on Altman’s X post where users just absolutely roasted him. His defensive essay wasn’t well received.
