OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made a stink about how Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad that took aim at his company was “dishonest” — but viewers seemed to love it.
Separate data from two social media listening companies, Meltwater and Sprout Social, suggest Super Bowl viewers were more buzzed about Anthropic’s spot than OpenAI’s.
Anthropic’s 30-second spot roasted OpenAI over its decision to bring ads to ChatGPT. The ad didn’t mention its competitor by name, but featured a scrawny man asking a buffed trainer, “Can I get a six pack quickly?” The trainer initially gives helpful information in the voice of an AI chatbot, but then quickly segues into an ad.
Anthropic’s Super Bowl spot signed off with the tagline: “There is a time and place for ads. Your conversations with AI should not be one of them.” (A previous version of the ad that the company teased pre-game appeared to be a more direct swipe at OpenAI: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”)
After Anthropic released a series of Super Bowl ad teasers last week, Altman responded with a lengthy post on X.
“First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed,” Altman wrote. “But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest.” He added more fuel to the fire in an interview with the tech news show TBPN, reiterating his views on Anthropic’s campaign.
OpenAI’s Super Bowl ad was a more earnest play, which encouraged viewers to use its coding agent to build their dream projects.
Data from Meltwater found that OpenAI’s ad drew more engagement across social media between February 8 and 9 (25,649 for OpenAI vs. 9,985 for Anthropic). The measure of engagement includes likes, reposts, replies, and comments. However, Anthropic won the battle for positive sentiment. Per Meltwater, 25.5% of the posts about its Super Bowl ad were positive, compared to 16.3% for OpenAI.
People discussing Anthropic’s ads were largely talking about how funny the ads were, whereas much of the discussion about OpenAI was critical about its plans to bring ads to ChatGPT, Anna Amarotti, Meltwater’s global consumer and market insights lead, told Business Insider.
Meltwater’s data found that Altman was referenced in about 5.0% of the Anthropic ad mentions and 4.7% of the OpenAI mentions. Anthropic Dario Amodei was present in 0.4% of Anthropic’s mentions, and none of OpenAI’s ad mentions over the period Meltwater looked at.
The OpenAI ad itself faced scrutiny, with Meltwater data showing the top viral post pointed out an apparent production error: a Windows laptop displaying the macOS ChatGPT app.
The new @OpenAI ad from the Super Bowl shows a macOS app running on a Windows laptop pic.twitter.com/vELUHxCwwf
— Aaron (@aaronp613) February 9, 2026
Overall, both brands saw stronger visibility in the lead-up to the Super Bowl than during the live moment, suggesting their impact was driven more by pre-event discussions, Meltwater’s Amarotti said.
Data from Sprout Social, a social media analytics company that uses a different methodology, showed that Anthropic’s ad had driven 7,847 mentions on social media as of early Monday morning, compared with OpenAI’s 7,040. Sprout’s analysis covered January 27 to February 9.
The YouTube video of Anthropic’s “Can I get a six pack quickly?” has drawn more than 402,000 views since it was posted on February 4. ChatGPT’s “You Can Just Build Things” ad, which was posted to YouTube less than 24 hours ago, has notched up over 81,000 views.
AI was everywhere
TV measurement platform iSpot found that almost a quarter (23%) of Super Bowl ads mentioned AI, or, in one case — the Swedish vodka brand Svedka — was created using AI.
Google had a sentimental commercial about a mother and child designing a new home using its Gemini app. Meta enlisted a Rolodex of athletes and the influencer iShowSpeed to showcase its Oakley Meta Performance AI glasses. The Amazon Alexa spot, starring Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky, poked fun at dystopian fears about AI turning evil.
Elsewhere, AI.com — a new AI platform launched by the founder of Crypto.com — invited viewers to visit its website to create a handle and create their own agents. The rush of traffic initially caused the website to crash. EDO, a TV measurement company, said AI.com’s ad was the most engaging ad of the entire Super Bowl, driving 9.1 times the median engagement this year. EDO scores ads based on whether they drove consumers to take an action online, such as searching for that brand on Google.
Advertisers on average paid $8 million for 30 seconds of airtime during this year’s Super Bowl, with some 30-second slots reaching as much as $10 million. Many Super Bowl LX advertisers leaned heavily on comedy and A-list celebrities as brands sought to play it safe in a charged political environment.
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