Anthropic has announced that it won’t be bringing ads to its AI chatbot Claude, in sharp contrast to confirmed plans from OpenAI to allow advertising in ChatGPT. To hammer the point home further, the company is releasing a Super Bowl commercial that makes fun of unnamed rivals adding adverts to their AI.
“We want Claude to act unambiguously in our users’ interests,” the company says in a new blog post. “So we’ve made a choice: Claude will remain ad-free. Our users won’t see ‘sponsored’ links adjacent to their conversations with Claude; nor will Claude’s responses be influenced by advertisers or include third-party product placements our users did not ask for.”
The announcement goes on to highlight exactly why including ads “would be incompatible with what we want Claude to be.” It suggests the profit incentive could interfere with providing the most helpful advice to a user asking about health problems like sleeping issues, and that ads might prove a distraction for anyone using Claude to work.
That said, Anthropic does make sure to leave the door open for a reversal: “Should we need to revisit this approach, we’ll be transparent about our reasons for doing so.”
An about-face a few years down the line might look hypocritical in light of the new Super Bowl ad the company is releasing to highlight its announcement. It’s one of four commercials released so far on YouTube along the same theme, with humanized AIs dropping adverts in the middle of their advice. The Wall Street Journal reports that a shorter 30-second version of this spot will air during the game on Sunday, with a separate minute-long commercial featuring an ad-enabled AI therapist during the pregame show.
None of the ads call out ChatGPT by name, but their target is obvious. OpenAI announced last month that ads are coming to ChatGPT soon for free users or those on the cheaper Go tier, though they’re supposed to be “clearly labeled” and sit apart from the chatbot’s answers to queries.
