As the public dispute between the two AI giants intensifies, Anthropic's business head Paul Smith did not hold back in criticizing rival OpenAI during an interview, stating that Anthropic focuses on business development rather than chasing "sensational headlines."

Anthropic ran advertisements during Sunday's Super Bowl that mocked OpenAI's decision to test ad features on ChatGPT. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called Anthropic's ads "misleading." This comes as leading AI model providers are engaged in increasingly fierce competition to win enterprise clients.

During the interview, Smith also commented that the sell-off in software stocks triggered by Anthropic's Claude Cowork tool was "largely overblown."

The Super Bowl advertising battle saw Anthropic spend millions on ads, including a 60-second pre-game spot and a 30-second in-game ad. The ad copy emphasized: "Ads are coming to AI, but they're not coming to Claude."

Smith stated that keeping ads out of Claude was a "deliberate decision." He argued that an advertising business would lead Anthropic down a "path of wrong optimization." He added that without ad distractions, the company can focus on enhancing AI model intelligence and building "truly useful, safe, and trustworthy products."

While OpenAI reaches a broad consumer audience with ChatGPT, Anthropic concentrates on selling AI services to business customers.

Smith claimed that by not offering advertising, Anthropic avoids conflicts of interest and can focus solely on providing AI products for enterprises.

He further noted, "We are not competing with our partners for traffic, ad revenue, or anything else."

"Our core focus is model quality, model performance, and how it integrates across the enterprise – this goes back to all the inputs we are truly focused on... We are solely focused on a completely different set of priorities; our energy isn't diluted."

Altman described Anthropic's Super Bowl ad as "kind of fun" but "obviously dishonest," adding that OpenAI would "obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic described."

OpenAI had not responded to media requests for comment at the time of writing.

Regarding "Sensational Headlines," following the latest round of major tech earnings, infrastructure investment has become a key focus for investors. Companies from Alphabet to Amazon have raised their capital expenditure plans for 2026.

Anthropic has committed $50 billion to building data centers in the US, while also purchasing computing power from providers like Microsoft and Google. Meanwhile, OpenAI has pledged over $1 trillion for future infrastructure investments with partners including NVIDIA, Oracle, and Broadcom.

When asked about Anthropic's infrastructure strategy compared to companies like OpenAI, Smith said, "We don't generate as many sensational headlines as some companies. We focus on revenue growth and winning business, rather than spending heavily and announcing the largest possible compute deals."

In recent months, OpenAI announced a series of partnerships: NVIDIA stated it would invest $100 billion to support OpenAI, deploying at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems. More recently, OpenAI also reached a $10 billion agreement with chipmaker Cerebras to deploy 750 megawatts of Cerebras AI chips, and signed other deals with AMD and Broadcom.

Concurrently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been reinforcing a "do more with less" philosophy, stating the company is more disciplined and prudent with spending compared to others.

Smith mentioned that Anthropic's management discusses the scale of computing investment daily. However, he expressed being "comfortable" with the current spending level due to strong market demand.

Smith clarified, "We are not pre-purchasing computing power ahead of demand." He praised the "amazing growth" of two core enterprise products, Claude Code and Claude Cowork. He added that overall enterprise business is growing rapidly, and they must meet this demand.

Smith also noted the company continuously reviews its spending plans. "We aim to procure just the right amount of computing power to maintain a very fast growth trajectory – neither overspending nor facing shortages, as insufficient capacity harms customers." He indicated more infrastructure-related news would be announced soon.

Smith's comments follow Anthropic's recent partnership with investment management firm Man Group, announced on Wednesday. Man Group will use Anthropic's AI products, and the two will co-develop new tools.

Regarding the software stock slump last week, software shares suffered heavy losses after Anthropic's efficiency tool, Claude Cowork, gained popularity. Investors worry that AI could replace services enterprises currently buy from various software vendors.

When asked if companies are considering phasing out traditional software with Anthropic's products, Smith said it depends on the specific institution.

He explained that some institutions are "increasing their investment in software," while others are considering using tools like Anthropic's.

Smith stated, "The market reaction last week was exaggerated."

"As many have pointed out, those applications – referring to the existing software enterprises currently use – handle very critical tasks within organizations."

"They have very specific data models and workflows, and enterprises will continue to derive significant value from them for a long time to come."