Last week, Anthropic joined the ranks of brands pre-gaming their Super Bowl spots. The AI company dropped a new ad campaign on Wednesday featuring several evocative (read: amusing, uncomfortable) scenes titled Betrayal, Deception, Treachery, and Violation. The tagline: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”
In case you missed it, OpenAI formally announced plans in January 2026 to introduce ads to its free and lowest-cost paid tiers of ChatGPT. A select group of brands will each commit at least $200,000 to participate in the beta, with some tests — reportedly — having already started.
So, yes, ads are coming to AI. Technically, ads infiltrated consumer-facing chatbots a while ago. Microsoft has supported ads in Copilot since September 2023, back when it was still called Bing Chat; Google began testing ads in AI Mode in May 2025; and Perplexity’s ads business, which launched in November 2024, now appears to be on ice.
But Anthropic is betting that ads in ChatGPT, specifically, will spark a shift in consumer behavior. Consumers, for their part, think differently.
Most Consumers Will Stomach Ads For Free Access To Answer Engines
Anthropic and OpenAI both aired ads during the Super Bowl, but Meltwater — a social listening company — found that Anthropic’s ads garnered more positive sentiment; the humor resonated with consumers. Chatter around OpenAI’s ad, however, was critical of its plans to bring ads to ChatGPT.
We surveyed our ConsumerVoices panelists about their preferences and beliefs around answer engines and advertising. They’re generally sensitive to ads blurring the line between helpful information and paid promotion. They also don’t want their personal data used or sold without their permission. But 83% of the 409 answer engine users we polled said they’d continue to use free tiers to access answer engines despite the introduction of ads.
So, ads in ChatGPT will likely trigger a short-term pullback from ad-avoidant users who either break their answer engine habit or switch to ad-free alternatives, provided the cost to access those alternatives is comparable. A small share (6%) will switch to a paid tier. Power ChatGPT users will stick around, having evolved their search and work habits to rely more heavily on the tech and the time savings it provides.
Ad-Free Status Is Likely Temporary For Anthropic, Too
Anthropic’s storytelling is certainly more compelling than OpenAI’s promise that ads won’t influence ChatGPT’s answers — one of several surface-level ad principles outlined in OpenAI’s announcement. After all, Sam Altman changed his tune on ads, so consumers have little reason to believe OpenAI won’t move the goalpost again. By the same logic, consumers have little reason to believe that Anthropic won’t use the same playbook: grow adoption on the back of an ad-free offering only to reverse course on ads later. It’s a tale as old as time.
And, as answer engines and LLMs embed themselves into every facet of consumers’ lives, costs will reach a point where alternative funding models — such as advertising — become necessary to subsidize the expense. Consumers have been trained by Google to expect and pursue free search experiences, and the vast majority will accept some ads in exchange. It all depends on how easy it is to ignore the ads, how sensitive the consumer is to privacy implications, and whether consumers believe that the chatbot’s answers remain truly unbiased.
Forrester clients: we’re here to help. If you want to explore this data further and discuss whether ChatGPT deserves a spot on your media plan, connect with us via a guidance session.
Note: This poll was administered to a random sample of 409 online adults in the US, UK, and Canada in Forrester’s qualitative ConsumerVoices online community Feb 6–9, 2026. This data isn’t weighted to be representative of total country populations.
