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Anthropic's newest ad is creeping people out

AnnouncementProductJul 14, 2026

Anthropic released an advertisement that unsettled viewers with its dark imagery and doomer-ist tone, depicting surveillance, homelessness, and cemetery scenes. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, criticized the ad on X, saying he initially thought it was satire. The ad follows a marketing playbook where a brand owns industry harms to position itself as responsible, but critics, including tech industry workers, called it poorly executed. Anthropic previously ran humorous Super Bowl ads targeting OpenAI.

Evidence

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Citation chain · 1 source

OpenAICompanyAnthropicCompanySam AltmanPerson
Canonical: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/anthropics-newest-ad-is-creeping-people-out/