The news: Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot saw an 11% daily active user boost from its Super Bowl ad targeting OpenAI’s ads launch, per BNP Paribas data cited by CNBC. Site visits increased 6.5% following the ad, putting Claude into the top 10 free apps on Apple’s App Store.

Claude’s gains were higher than its major competitors who also advertised at the Super Bowl, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta, and Google Gemini. ChatGPT’s daily active users grew 2.7% after the game, while Gemini’s grew only 1.4%.

The ad behind the surge: Anthropic’s ad took clear aim at OpenAI after the latter announced that ads were coming to ChatGPT. Its series of Super Bowl ads emphasized that Claude will remain ad-free even as more AI services launch ads.

Anthropic meets consumers: The company’s ad-free push is succeeding because it reflects consumer demands. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of US adults agree that ads make them trust AI search results less, per Ipsos. Twenty-seven percent strongly agree. In contrast, only 24% disagree with this sentiment.

Others have pointed out that consumer trust will be a barrier to the effectiveness of ads in ChatGPT. Missteps in its ads launch risk reinforcing concerns consumers already have about data privacy and manipulation—and ChatGPT has yet to demonstrate that its safeguards are strong enough to meaningfully mitigate those risks.