The generative AI chatbot ad wars have begun.
Nearly three weeks after OpenAI (OPENAI) confirmed it would begin testing ads inside its near-ubiquitous ChatGPT chatbot, competitor Anthropic (ANTHRO) took the other side of the coin.
Anthropic, known for its Claude chatbot and family of large language models, said on Wednesday that Claude will remain ad-free.
“We want Claude to act unambiguously in our users’ interests. So we’ve made a choice: Claude will remain ad-free,” the company said on its website. “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.”
Anthropic did not specifically mention ChatGPT or OpenAI, but its messaging is a clear shot across the bow at the Sam Altman-led company and how it is different.
“Our business model is straightforward: we generate revenue through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions, and we reinvest that revenue into improving Claude for our users,” the company explained. “This is a choice with tradeoffs, and we respect that other AI companies might reasonably reach different conclusions.”
“We want our users to trust Claude to help them keep thinking—about their work, their challenges, and their ideas,” Anthropic added further. “Our experience of using the internet has made it easy to assume that advertising on the products we use is inevitable. But open a notebook, pick up a well-crafted tool, or stand in front of a clean chalkboard, and there are no ads in sight. We think Claude should work the same way.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Separately on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic, which is backed by Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) and others, intends to air a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl that will parody intrusive advertisements inside conversations with chatbots. The company also intends to air a 60-second ad during the pregame.
The company reportedly surpassed $9B in annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025 and has started preparations to go public.
Anthropic is said to be working on a deal to let some employees sell shares in the company at a valuation of at least $350B, which would be the same valuation as the new funding round it is working on. Previous reporting has indicated that Anthropic closed the round and could raise as much as $20B when the round is finished.