AI companies are looking for new ways of burning cash other than by handing it to hyperscalers for model training. So now they're setting money on fire by buying Super Bowl ads that mock rivals.

Anthropic, everyone's favorite AI company that doesn't make ChatGPT, has decided that its [1]Claude AI model family will remain free of advertising , unlike rival OpenAI, and wants everyone to know about it.

By letting "everyone" know, we mean everyone who chooses to watch the Super Bowl, as the firm plans to run a pair of TV commercials during this Sunday's game, according to the [2]Associated Press .

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Anthropic has actually [4]created four of the commercials , each a minute long, all of which follow the same pattern: a user asks a chatbot for advice concerning some aspect of their life. The chatbot, represented by a real person speaking in a somewhat unnatural manner, gives encouraging and supportive advice at first, before abruptly switching to promote a product related to the conversation.

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[7]Youtube Video

According to some sources, the TV networks have been flogging 30-second ad slots for prices exceeding $10 million this year, which means Anthropic could be coughing up $20 million for each minute-long commercial it runs.

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That's equivalent to the company sacrificing about six of Nvidia's hulking [9]DGX GB200 NVL72 rack scale AI systems or a lot of runtime on AWS for a jokey commercial, according to our reckoning, so they had better be funny.

Unfortunately, they aren't that funny, just mildly amusing, but OpenAI chief Sam Altman claims they made him laugh.

In a riposte [10]posted on X, Altman described the commercials as funny, but dishonest.

[11]Anthropic cements its position as the not-OpenAI with no-ads pledge

[12]NASA taps Claude to conjure Mars rover's travel plan

[13]Irony alert: Anthropic helps UK.gov to build chatbot for job seekers

[14]Claude Code's prying AIs read off-limits secret files

"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," he says - we imagine through gritted teeth.

Altman then has a pop at Anthropic in return, claiming that the biz “wants to control what people do with AI by blocking companies it doesn’t like from using its coding product” and wants to “write the rules itself for what people can and can’t use AI for,” contrasting that with OpenAI’s approach, naturally.

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This unseemly spat could be partly down to Anthropic being founded in 2021 by former members of OpenAI, including, we should disclose, Jack Clark, [16]formerly of this parish .

Anthropic appears to be trying to position itself as the plucky underdog, nipping at the heels of the tech giants, but it too has major backers, including Amazon and Google, which have [17]committed billions in funding and partnerships to the AI developer.

Perhaps we can look forward to the day when the AI bubble finally pops and we don't have to hear any more from Silicon Valley AI firms and their crazy circular investment schemes. Altman himself [18]admitted we're in the midst of an AI bubble last year. ®

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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/anthropic_no_advertising_in_claude/

[2] https://apnews.com/article/openai-anthropic-chatgpt-claude-rivalry-c19e0cca22c37190cc4e0dc08e889ef0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYUhERk8N3exCOs62g920gAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[4] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anthropic

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYUhERk8N3exCOs62g920gAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYUhERk8N3exCOs62g920gAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBSam25u8O4

[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYUhERk8N3exCOs62g920gAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/21/nvidia_dgx_gb200_nvk72/

[10] https://x.com/sama/status/2019139174339928189?s=20

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/anthropic_no_advertising_in_claude/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/31/nasa_taps_claude_to_conjure/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/irony_alert_anthropic_helps_ukgov/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/28/claude_code_ai_secrets_files/

[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYUhERk8N3exCOs62g920gAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[16] https://www.theregister.com/Author/Jack-Clark/

[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/03/anthropic_funding/

[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/boy_riding_bubble_realizes_what/

[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/