Sam Altman criticises Anthropic’s Mythos cyber model, calls it fear-driven marketing

OpenAI and Anthropic continue to trade criticism over their competing AI strategies, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman taking fresh aim at Anthropic’s latest cybersecurity-focused model during a recent podcast appearance. Altman suggested the company is relying on fear-based messaging to position its technology as more advanced and dangerous than it actually is.

Anthropic recently introduced its new model, Mythos, which has been released only to a limited group of enterprise customers. The company has argued that Mythos is too capable in cybersecurity-related domains to be made widely available, warning that it could be misused by cybercriminals if publicly released. However, some industry observers have questioned whether these claims are exaggerated for positioning and marketing purposes.

Speaking on the podcast Core Memory, Altman implied that Anthropic’s framing reflects a broader strategy of restricting access to advanced AI systems, justified by safety concerns. “There are people in the world who, for a long time, have wanted to keep AI in the hands of a smaller group of people,” he said. “You can justify that in a lot of different ways.”

He went on to compare the messaging to exaggerated risk narratives used for commercial gain. “It is clearly incredible marketing to say, ‘We have built a bomb, we are about to drop it on your head. We will sell you a bomb shelter for $100 million,” Altman added.

The OpenAI chief also suggested that “fear-based marketing” is not unique to Anthropic, noting that parts of the AI industry have long used dramatic claims about existential risk and societal disruption to generate attention and justify product positioning. He pointed out that such rhetoric has come from both critics and industry leaders promoting AI technologies. The debate highlights the ongoing tension between OpenAI and Anthropic as both companies compete for influence in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, where questions of safety, access, and commercialisation continue to shape public perception.