Anthropic made a public commitment Wednesday: Claude will never show ads. Not in the free tier. Not in paid plans. Not anywhere.
“There are many good places for advertising. A conversation with Claude is not one of them,” the company stated in a blog post published Wednesday.
The announcement arrives three weeks after OpenAI revealed plans to test ads in ChatGPT. The company said that ChatGPT’s free tier and its $8/month Go plan will show clearly labelled advertisements at the bottom of responses. OpenAI says ads won’t influence answers or involve selling user data, but they will appear during conversations.
OpenAI also says the test is limited to logged-in adults in the U.S., adding that users will be able to dismiss ads and turn off ad personalisation, and that ads won’t run for users it knows or predicts are under 18 or alongside sensitive topics like health, mental health, or politics.
Damilare Odedina
Why AI conversations are different from search.
Anthropic’s argument centres on what people actually share in AI conversations versus search queries. When someone types a question into Google, they expect a mix of sponsored links and organic results. That’s the established model.
AI conversations work differently. People share personal context, sensitive details, complex problems they’re thinking through. According to Anthropic’s analysis of Claude usage, “an appreciable portion involves topics that are sensitive or deeply personal—the kinds of conversations you might have with a trusted advisor.”
The company gave a specific example. Someone mentions trouble sleeping. An AI without advertising incentives would explore potential causes—stress, environment, daily habits—based on what might help most. An ad-supported AI adds another layer: whether this conversation creates an opportunity to sell a product.
Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude. Keep thinking. pic.twitter.com/n2yECeBWyT
— Claude (@claudeai) February 4, 2026
“These objectives may often align—but not always,” Anthropic wrote. “And, unlike a list of search results, ads that influence a model’s responses may make it difficult to tell whether a given recommendation comes with a commercial motive or not.”
It further argued that even ads that don’t directly shape responses would create problems. Advertising pushes companies to optimise for engagement—time spent, return visits. “The most useful AI interaction might be a short one, or one that resolves the user’s request without prompting further conversation,” Anthropic noted.
What this means for users
If you’re using ChatGPT for free or on the Go plan, ads are coming. OpenAI says they’ll be clearly separated from answers and won’t change what the AI tells you. ChatGPT Plus ($20/month), Pro ($200/month), and enterprise plans will remain ad-free.
If you’re using Claude, ads aren’t coming. The free tier, the company has said, would stay free without advertising. Paid tiers stay paid without advertising. Anthropic says it will fund this through enterprise deals and subscriptions, adding, “We continue to invest in our smaller models so that our free offering remains at the frontier of intelligence.” Anthropic also says its enterprise push is already paying off, claiming that Claude Code and Cowork have brought in at least $1 billion in revenue.
The company isn’t rejecting commerce entirely. Claude will still help users research products, compare options, and make purchases when they ask. Anthropic is exploring “agentic commerce,” where Claude completes tasks like bookings on a user’s behalf—but only when the user initiates it, not when advertisers pay for placement.
Third-party tools like Figma, Asana, and Canva already integrate with Claude. The rule stays the same: user-directed, not advertiser-directed.
The Super Bowl campaign
Anthropic is spending heavily to make its case public. According to The Wall Street Journal, a 30-second spot will air during Sunday’s game, with a separate minute-long commercial during pregame coverage featuring an ad-enabled AI therapist.
The video, which Anthropic posted on social media, shows scenarios like an AI awkwardly pitching products mid-conversation. None mentions ChatGPT by name, but the target is obvious. The campaign closes with: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”
First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026
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…
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X, calling Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad “clearly dishonest” and saying OpenAI would never run ads the way Anthropic depicts. “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people,” Altman wrote. “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.”
However, Anthropic left room for future changes. “Should we need to revisit this approach, we’ll be transparent about our reasons for doing so,” the company stated.
Damilare Odedina
