Anthropic’s sensitive cubs and roaring cougars commercial trampled OpenAI’s offerings in searches and site hit metrics during the Super Bowl, according to ad tracking firm EDO. However, the unknown player ai.com, which pitched the fantastical idea that “AGI is coming,” won the day.

EDO examines online behavior after an ad runs, looking at searches and website visits to determine sales or market shifts, the company’s CEO Kevin Krim said in a segment on CNBC.

“Anthropic’s Claude outdueled OpenAI’s ChatGPT with two of its ads outperforming the three ads from ChatGPT,” Krim said. “But there was a dark horse that came out of the rankings, ai.com, which is a domain purchased by crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek, and he and his creative team trolled ‘Elon’ and ‘Sam’ and that ad got people very curious. The site crashed in the minutes following that ad airing on TV.”

The ai.com hit won 9.1 times as much engagement as the average Super Bowl LX ad, beating Universal Studios’ ad for a new Minions movie, Lay’s tear-jerker potato farming ad, a Netflix trailer for the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood TV series, and even a Dunkin’ Donuts ad that had Ben Affleck alongside stars from Friends, Seinfeld, and Cheers, along with an appearance by Tom Brady.

The website ai.com claims to let all users build AI agents that operate on their behalf, according to a press release the company posted Friday. All website visitors must hand over credit card information to vouch that they are human.

Two of Claude’s three ads placed 12th and 13th in the rankings, ahead of EDO’s 14th place Salesforce – a Vault ad which promoted a $1 million give away by Mr. Beast. They were also well in front of OpenAI’s Codex ad which ranked 24th, according to a selection of rankings that are featured on the company’s site. The Register has reached out to EDO for a full list of the rankings.

“I think the theme here was between the AI ads – which outnumbered automotive and beer ads which I thought was fascinating – you saw just his idea that technology whether it was AI or pharmaceutical can change people’s lives,” Krim said.

Meta’s ad with former Seattle Seahawk running back Marshawn Lynch for its wearable AI devices ranked 20th, in a game in which a current Seattle running back stole the show on the gridiron.

Claude last week drew a hard line saying advertising had no place in the conversations with its users.

“We want Claude to act unambiguously in our users’ interests. So we’ve made a choice: Claude will remain ad-free. Our users won’t see “sponsored” links adjacent to their conversations with Claude; nor will Claude’s responses be influenced by advertisers or include third-party product placements our users did not ask for,” the company wrote.

Claude’s ads leaned into the problems this could cause with a workout companion recommending shoe lifts for “short kings” after the user feeds it his height, and an AI therapist which pushes a dating site that matches “sensitive cubs with roaring cougars” for a man seeking a better relationship with his mom.

OpenAI’s ad was centered on its software development tool Codex and the progression of a technologist from building cardboard to code.

“I think the stakes are so high in this battle among the AI giants that Anthropic went after the weakness that they saw with ads in the middle of someone’s very intimate chats,” Krim said. “I think OpenAI responded that that was not how it was going to work. I think those types of battles that can really work. The value proposition from the consumer is pretty clear. Open AI went with heartwarming and very good ads around the value proposition of helping you achieve what you want to achieve.” ®