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Days before the Super Bowl, Anthropic dropped a handful of Super Bowl ads taking aim at OpenAIs impending advertising model for ChatGPT. The ads anthropomorphize OpenAI’s platform, imagining how the chatbot might answer everyday questions like What do you think of my business idea? and “Can I get a six-pack quickly?” The answers, delivered by actors in cheerfully sycophantic robot speak, start out sounding like stilted but helpful advice, before veering into promotional marketing speak for a hypothetical advertiser on ChatGPT. Immediately, the ads sparked a firestorm online. Some called them brilliant. Others called them mean-spirited. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman felt so strongly, he crafted an earnest post on X about why Anthropic’s ads were so misleading. But wrong move, bro. Anthropic, one of your AI rivals, just handed OpenAIand the entire AI industrya huge gift. Not to mention the ad business. An ad battle for the AI age Not since the days of Coke and Pepsi have we seen this kind of ire slung at a category competitor. And I just have to say: I’m here for it. We are at a pivotal time for AI development and adoption across business and culture, with issues ranging from mass layoffs to people using LLMs for dating advice. But AI is also in its brand infancy, with some platforms building massive name recognition but very little brand image. There is no better category than AI to start a full-on advertising battle in 2026, and there are no two better companies to wage it than Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic has long framed its Claude platform as a more refined LLM than its OpenAI counterpart. And its Super Bowl ads are delivering an implicit message about the competition: You can’t trust them. Created by award-winning ad agency Mother, the new Anthropic campaign, A Time and a Place, has four spots in total (two are big-game bound). People want an AI they can trustone thats focused solely on working for them. We want Claude to be that choice, Andrew Stirk, Anthropics head of marketing, said in a statement. When OpenAI’s Altman opined on X that it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that arent real, perhaps he should turn that into a brief for his growing all-star internal marketing team (imagine a 1984-style ad for 2026). I mean, he even has Brandon McGraw, former head of consumer marketing at Anthropic, on the roster. Same story with his second attempt at a clapback: More Texans use ChatGPT for free than total people use Claude in the U.S., so we have a differently-shaped problem than they do. What about an AI Challenge ad set in El Paso or Brownsville where they go full “Get a Mac” and paint Claude as the snooty also-ran to ChatGPT’s bot of the people? This consumer-facing dichotomy is the perfect setup for an advertising battle. You’ve got two brands offering ostensibly the same thing (at least to the average person), just with different positioning. Butas Coke and Pepsi demonstratedeven though brands involved in street fights like this do get a few ego bruises, historically the creative arms race helps both emerge in a stronger position with their audiences. First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we wont do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic— Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026 Challenger game The decades-long scrap between Coca-Cola and Pepsi is well-documented, but its dynamics have been replicated in various ways over the years in other product categories like tech, fast food, and telecom. There’s a typical anatomy to ad wars that cuts across industries. At their most basic, these campaigns always begin with a challenger brand calling out a much bigger rival by name. For Pepsi, which began the cola wars with less than 20% market share, that meant the Pepsi Challengeshowing real people choosing Pepsi over Coke in blind taste tests. This year, it meant hijacking Coke’s familiar polar bear for the Super Bowl. Apples Get a Mac is widely considered one of the best long-running advertising campaigns of all time. Apple was the challenger (if you can believe that) depicting the dominant PC brands (Microsoft Windows) as dull, cumbersome, and just plain uncool. Of course, the challenger brand is in the eye of the beholder, and in 2011 it was Samsung mocking iPhone fanboys for lining up to get what it deemed an inferior product. Over in fast food, Burger King had an award-winning run of work in the late 2010s under then-CMO Fernando Machado, much of which directly involved McDonalds. To promote the nonprofit Peace One Day, Burger King took out ads and built an entire website proposing to McDonalds that the rivals make peace to create the ultimate burgerthe McWhopper. The ad had $220 million in earned media value, and 8.9 billion impressions. In 2018, Burger King created print ads with photos of barbecue grills at former homes of ex-McDonald’s executives to highlight the flame-grilled taste of Whoppers. That same year, it launched Whopper Detour, a promo campaign that used geofencing to offer a 1-cent Whopper to users who ordered through the Burger King app while within 600 feet of a McDonald’s. It got 1.5 million Burger King app downloads in nine days. Even Taco Bell took a swing at the golden arches when it launched a breakfast menu in 2014. For its largest marketing campaign ever up to that point, Taco Bell recruited real guys named Ronald McDonald to testify to the tastiness of its Breakfast Crunchwrap. Whether people were emotionally invested because they loved one of these brands over the other, or they were just there for the LOLs, each of these sparked two things brands crave absolutelyattention and excitement. Strategic response A 2025 INSEAD study called The Power of Strategic Rivalry found that a well-managed rivalry can extend the story between competitors, keeping consumers tuned in longer andimportantlybenefiting both sides with ongoing engagement and relevance. People love a good brand fight. Coca-Cola maintained its lead throughout the cola wars, but Pepsis market share shot up from 20% to a peak of 30%-plus in the 1990s. And their ad war not only helped increase overall soda consumption from 12.4% of American beverage consumption in 1970 to 22.4% in 1985, but each brand more than doubled revenues over the 1980s. And thanks to the sheer intensity and ad frequency during the most heated years of their ad battle, the brands elbowed their way to the center of pop culture. Between 1975 and 1995, Cokes annual ad spending went from about $25 million to $112 million, while Pepsis grew from $18 million to $82 million. The haymakers from challenger brands are to be expected. But rarely, if ever, do the bigger brands respond with the same level of bite. In fact, the most successful responses have been investing in better creative brand work done more often. McDonalds didnt use its global domination to swipe down at Burger King. Instead it invested in and celebrated its existing fans in fun and unique ways. Specifically, with the Famous Orders work that began with Travis Scott in 2020 and expanded to collaborators as varied as Mariah Carey, BTS, and Cactus Plant Flea Market, driving record app usage, hundreds of millions in sales, and making new fans of younger customers. OpenAI appears to be taking a similar tack in its advertising, at least so far. The brand is focusing on how its tools can inspire and enable people to build new things. Its three regional Super Bowl spots are about how three different American small businessesa seed farm, a metal salvage yard, and a family-run tamale shopare utilizing ChatGPT to grow and thrive. OpenAI CMO Kate Rouch admits the Anthropic spots are funny, but since ads havent landed in ChatGPT yet, its a complete fabrication of what that experience will be like. When I spoke to her this week, she took issue with the spots calling OpenAIs use of advertising to support free access to the tools as a violation, and reiterated Altmans point that ChatGPT has more free monthly users in Texas than Anthropic has globally. And our perspective is that open, free access to this technology will enable individual people to build things that will benefit them and us all, Rouch told me. It really all comes down to self-empowerment and being able to do things that you either didn’t believe you could do before or you actually couldn’t do before. And that’s the whole game. This is a more sound strategy, both overall and in light of Anthropics trolling, than last years animated Super Bowl ad that had many people guessing just what the hell it was trying to say. If this is the dawn of AIs version of the cola warsand I hope it isits an impressive start for both brands. Anthropics challenger strategy here hits, not just for the cojones to step up to the Super Bowl against a much bigger rival. The key to any challenger swipe that actually works hinges on its creative execution, and these spots steer clear of the slop to serve up a bona fide chefs kiss. For OpenAI, creatively telling real stories about real people using its tools to solve real problems and build real things looks less like an advertising street fight and more like a turn for the high road toward the brand image promised land.
Category:
E-Commerce
At the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, the iconic cauldron of the Games is putting on a daily show just like its athletes. This year, for the first time ever, there are two cauldrons lit simultaneously at different locations. Inspired by Leonardo da Vincis geometric drawings, both cauldrons expand and contract, respond to music, and emit their own lightand one will put on hourly performances for viewers throughout the Games. The tradition of the Olympic flame and cauldron dates back 100 years or more. Historically, the Games are opened with a relay ceremony wherein torch bearers bring the flame to the cauldron, which remains lit until the closing ceremony. And while the cauldrons design remained relatively consistent for the first decades of the Olympics, in recent years it has become a major design moment. This years approach is an encapsulation of the cauldrons transition from a static object to a show in itself. Spectators gather at Milans Arco della Pace (Arch of Peace) to catch a sneak peek of one of the 2026 Olympic cauldrons on January 30. [Photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images] In the last editions of the games, more and more of the main focus has been on who is going to light the cauldron, its design, and what it means, says Marco Balich, the creative lead for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony who designed this years cauldrons. To make a long story short, I think over the years you see the history of the cauldron goes from very simple ones to [beautiful statements]. A brief history of Olympic cauldron design While symbolic fire at the Olympics traces back to at least 1928, the first Olympic torch relay took place in Berlin in 1936. The cauldron that year was a small, bowl-like vessel standing on three legs on a podium. In subsequent Games, like 1948 London, 1952 Helsinki, and 1960 Rome, the cauldron format remained largely the same. The Olympic Cauldron of the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin survived World War II undamaged; photographed at Berlin Olympic Stadium in 2005. [Photo: Nick Potts/PA/Getty Images] Starting around 1968, designers began to take a bit more creative liberty with the cauldron. That years Mexico City Games featured a cauldron made by a womana firstshaped like a giant circular chalice. Since then, the cauldron has continuously evolved in shape and scope, from a 6.4-meter-high scroll-shaped one for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to a multi-shard monument for the 2010 Vancouver Games and a petal-inspired chorus of flames for the London Games in 2012. The Olympic flame burns above Mexico Citys University Olympic Stadium on opening day of track and field competition at the 1968 Summer Games. [Photo: UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images] According to Balich, who holds a record 16 event credits for Olympic ceremonies, recent years have seen the cauldron transform from a stationary symbol into a kind of high-stakes performance art. Balich coordinated the opening ceremony for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games that featured a kinetic sun sculpture by artist Anthony Howe; powered by the wind, its tentacles fluttered and reflected the light of the cauldrons flame to spectacular effect. Mariene de Castro performs in front of the Olympic cauldron during the closing ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics at Maracaa Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. [Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images] And in Paris 2024, designer Mathieu Lehanneur abandoned almost all of the cauldrons recognizable design tradition in favor of a literal hot-air balloon, which took flight daily during the Games for a ticketed audience and remained in Pariss Tuileries Garden for nightly performances after the Olympics concluded. Balich says that expansion of the cauldrons role during the Games and beyond inspired this years design. I was very inspired because it confirmed to me that the experience of this object is so relevant, that it was worth it to add this dynamic session that wuld enlarge the experience and be even more emotionally touching, especially for the younger generation, he says. [Rendering: Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026] A new cauldron experience This year, Balich iterated on the idea of the cauldron as an experience by turning it into an hourly show complete with lights, music, and movement. His concept started with two cauldronsone in Milan and one in Cortinato represent harmony between man and nature. The designs are inspired by a series of geometrical drawings by Da Vinci (who lived in Milan for several years), which used mathematics to imagine various intricate three-dimensional shapes. Balich says he did a quick drawing of his original concept, then called on creative director Lida Castelli and set designer Paolo Fantin to develop the final products. [Rendering: Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026] The cauldrons themselves are constructed out of aeronautical aluminum, with a whopping 1,440 components making up their intricate structure. A total of 244 pivot points allows them to smoothly expand and contract from a minimum diameter of 3.1 meters to a maximum of 4.5 meters. LED lights along the surface of these components give the cauldrons an otherworldly glow, while the actual Olympic flame is enclosed inside a glass-and-metal container at their centers. The final product looks like something you might expect to see descending from the heavensor a much less foreboding Eye of Sauron. [Photo: Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images] One cauldron is suspended in Milans Arco della Pace (Arch of Peace), where it will put on a three-to-five-minute show every hour during the Games from 5 to 11 p.m., accompanied by music from Italian composer Roberto Cacciapaglia. The second sits on a podium in Cortina dAmpezzos Piazza Angelo Dibona. And, just as they were lit simultaneously, theyll be extinguished simultaneously when the Games close. I hope that everybody will gatherfamilies, friends, curious design lovers, design criticsto go there and be immersed in this music and this beautiful show around the arch, Balich says. My goal for that is to add an experience to watching the sacred fire from Olympia, which in a way is one of the most powerful symbols around the world of peace, fraternity, sports, and the values that the Games represent.
Category:
E-Commerce
The notion of instant on-the-go translation is nothing new for most of us, thanks to the now-ubiquitous Google Translate service. But a scrappy Google competitor thinks it can do better. This month, a company called Kagi is officially launching its Kagi Translate app for both Android and iOS. The app mirrors most of the same features Google Translate offers, with a few interesting new touches and one key point of distinction: It is all about protecting your privacywith no ads, no trackers, and no data being monetized or repurposed in any way. Ohand its free, too. Youll need all of two minutes to take it out for a test-drive. Psst: If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. You’ll be the first to find all sorts of simple tech treasures! Instant translationsplus privacy Once you’ve got the Kagi Translate app on your device, it’s really quite intuitive to use. At its core: You can type or paste any text into its main translation box to have the text translated from and to any language you like. You can tap the camera icon in that same box to take a photo of text in the real worldon a document, a menu, a whiteboard, you name itand then have the language auto-detected and translated into your native tongue from there. A document icon in that same area lets you upload a file from your phone (or any connected cloud storage) for speedy on-the-fly translation. And a microphone icon lets you speak aloudor have someone else speak aloudfor real-time translations of the words as theyre uttered. Kagi Translate’s main screen is one simple promptwith plenty of power around it. Beyond that, Kagi Translate offers some interesting extrasfor instance: If you tap the three-line settings icon within the main translation box, you can change between a natural and literal translation style, a formal or informal voice (for languages where thats relevant), and also any available gender preference (again, where relevant for a dialect). In that same area, you can also add your own custom context to help guide the translationtelling the app, in your own words, what type of conversation youre having, and with whom, so it can adjust its approach accordingly. Poke around, and you’ll find all sorts of ways to customize and control your translation output. In the apps bottom-of-screen Dictionary tab, you can simply get an on-demand, instantly translated definition of a word or phrase in another language. The apps Proofread tab will review any text you type or paste into it and offer suggestions to make it work better in your chosen language. And with any translation the app provides you, you have the ability to play the text out loud or copy it onto your system clipboardas well as request alternate translations for different ways to say the same basic thing. Kagi Translate can give you different ways to say the same thing, if you aren’t entirely thrilled with its initial translation. Again, though: Its Kagis commitment to privacy that really sets this app apart. You dont have to sign in or create an account to use it, and nothing you do or say within the app is ever shared or used for any type of ad targeting. If that sounds familiar, it should: Ive written about Kagi and its similarly privacy-centric approach to regular ol search before, and that same mindset applies to pretty much everything else the company has offeredincluding, too, the excellent Android summarizing app I mentioned in these same quarters a few months ago. Kagi makes its money entirely from user subscriptions, which are required for its core search service but not for the assorted stand-alone apps like Translate and Summarize. Whether youre using Kagi for any other purposes or not, though, this new tool is an interesting option to keep around and a welcome alternative to Google’s de facto defaultand maybe, just maybe, its exactly the je ne sais quoi youve been waiting for. Kagi Translate is available for both Android and iOS. There’s also a web version for desktop computer access. The app is completely free to use, though a paid Kagi membership will allow you to access some additional options. The app doesn&8217;t have any ads or trackers and doesn’t require any sort of sign-inand even if you do opt to create an account, Kagi’s core promise is that it never shares any of your data with anyone, in any way, or uses it for any profitable purposes. Treat yourself to all sorts of experience-enhancing treasures like this with my free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful ways.
Category:
E-Commerce
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