Sam Altman and Dario Amodei's awkward moment exposes deepening AI rivalry at India summit

Altman and Amodei share a moment of awkwardness at India's big AI summit | TechCrunch

What would have been a moment of united commitment to global tech innovation at the ongoing India AI Impact Summit instead proved an awkward one: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted speakers at the event to join hands and raise them in a show of solidarity, all executives on stage obliged -- except OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, who held their hands noticeably apart. As leaders of the two foremost labs in the AI race, it goes without saying that Altman and Amodei are fierce competitors. That rivalry has only intensified in recent months: after OpenAI said it would bring advertisements to ChatGPT, Anthropic took a swipe at OpenAI in a couple ads during the Super Bowl, declaring that it would never introduce ads into Claude. Altman soon after hit back in response, calling Anthropic "dishonest" and "authoritarian." "We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid, and we know our users would reject that," he wrote at the time. Both Altman and Amodei were in India this week for the AI summit held in New Delhi, which saw a bevy of AI-related investments, features and products being announced. OpenAI said it is opening two new offices in India, partnering with IT giant TCS, and is deploying tools for higher education. Anthropic has also opened an office in India and teamed up with Infosys for internal and external deployment of its AI tools.

Altman vs. Amodei: AI Rivals Refuse to Hold Hands at Modi Summit

Once a rival, always a rival. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the busiest day of India's AI Summit in New Delhi, he orchestrated a photo op with 13 other business and political leaders, all standing in a line and holding each other's hands above their heads. Well, all of them except two. Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, chief executive officers of rivals OpenAI and Anthropic PBC, were positioned next to each other and, awkwardly, refused to clasp each other's hands. Instead, they stood with their arms crossed in the air, also avoiding eye contact. Amodei had worked at OpenAI, but left to co-found his company because he felt that OpenAI was becoming too commercially focused. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi poses with tech leaders including OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei in New Delhi. The two are now leading the most valuable closely held AI companies in the world, with OpenAI worth about $500 billion and Anthropic valued at $380 billion.

Modi's AI unity pose turns awkward for Altman and Amodei

NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (Reuters) - When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi nudged speakers at the India AI summit to join and raise their hands in a symbolic show of unity, most executives obliged. Two did not: rivals Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The two, who are locked in one of Silicon Valley's fiercest commercial rivalries, were standing side by side as the 13 corporate leaders joined Modi on stage, but they kept their raised fists conspicuously apart. Altman appeared visibly uncomfortable, looking away as the others, including Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Sundar Pichai, went along with Modi's nudge and joined hands. The episode, captured on camera and widely shared across social media, drew amused and pointed reactions online, with many users describing it as emblematic of the "AI cold war" between OpenAI and Anthropic. "I didn't know what was happening on stage. I wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing," Altman later told news website Moneycontrol. OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Bill Gates pulled out of India's summit hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing a blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row and complaints of traffic chaos. However, the summit has attracted more than $200 billion in investment pledges. Anthropic was co-founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei and other former OpenAI employees who broke away over disagreements about safety, commercialisation, and Altman's leadership style. The rift has since hardened into a full-blown commercial war. At this year's Super Bowl, Anthropic aired satirical commercials taking a pointed jab at OpenAI's plans to introduce advertising inside ChatGPT. Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Kate Mayberry Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence Munsif Vengattil Thomson Reuters Based in Bengaluru, Munsif Vengattil leads Reuters' technology news coverage in India. He tracks themes at the intersection of tech, business, and labor. A reporter for nine years, Munsif has written extensively on India's electronics manufacturing aspirations and its tech policy space, AI and election interference, satellite internet, streaming wars, and data breaches. His stories also focus on investigating corporate strategies and revealing India-specific initiatives and challenges of the biggest of tech firms - from Apple, Facebook, and Google, to Foxconn, Samsung, and Nvidia.

Modi's AI summit turns awkward as tech leaders Sam Altman and Dario Amodei dodge contact

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday invited leaders of some of the top artificial intelligence companies to gather on stage as part of a commitment to build more "inclusive and multilingual" AI around the world. And they did. But what caught some of the audience's attention, and later went viral on social media, was an awkward interaction between two rival tech leaders: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Modi, host of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, clasped hands with those closest to him -- Altman to his left and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to his right -- and beckoned all 13 tech leaders to lift their hands up in a chain, like theater actors at the end of a show. Everyone was holding hands except for Altman and Amodei, who stood next to each other but for several seconds awkwardly avoided hand contact. Both eventually put up their fists instead. The interaction quickly became a visual symbol of the deep rivalries in the AI industry, particularly between OpenAI and Anthropic, though Altman sought to brush off any deeper meaning. "I didn't know what was happening," Altman later said in a video interview with Indian media outlet Moneycontrol. "I was sort of confused, like when (Modi) grabbed my hand and put it up, and I just wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing." Anthropic declined to comment. The two AI developers have a history, one that predates the creation of OpenAI's hit product, ChatGPT, and Anthropic's competing chatbot Claude. Amodei worked at OpenAI before he and a group that included his sister, Daniela Amodei, quit to form Anthropic in 2021. The newer company promised a clearer focus on the safety of the better-than-human technology called artificial general intelligence that both San Francisco firms aim to build. OpenAI first released ChatGPT in late 2022, revealing the huge commercial potential of AI large language models that could help write emails and computer code and answer questions. Anthropic followed with its first version of Claude in 2023. Their different approaches spilled over into public debate earlier this month in the United States when Anthropic aired TV commercials during the Super Bowl that ridiculed OpenAI for the digital advertising it's beginning to place in free and cheaper versions of ChatGPT. While Anthropic has centered its revenue model on selling Claude to other businesses, OpenAI has opened the doors to ads as a way of making money from the hundreds of millions of consumers who get ChatGPT for free. Altman took to social media to criticize the TV commercials as dishonest.

OpenAI and Anthropic's rivalry on display as CEOs don't hold hands at India AI summit

OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei had an awkward moment on Thursday as they chose not to hold hands during a group photo of political and tech leaders. They were on stage at the India AI Impact Summit, alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, among others. Both had been keynote speakers. Modi had lifted Altman and Pichai's hands before an applauding crowd, with others following suit. However, Altman and Amodei, who were next to each other, raised their fists instead of holding hands with one another. It comes as competition intensifies between ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Claude maker Anthropic, with both vying for their models to become the default choice for consumers globally. The companies have also recently traded shots over the potential use of adverts in AI models. The image of Altman and Amodei opting out of holding hands quickly made the rounds on social media. Siddharth Bhatia, cofounder of AI startup Puch AI, posted on X: "When AGI? The day Dario and Sam hold hands." Justine Moore, an investing partner at Andreesen Horowitz, shared a picture with the words: "When you're forced to do a group project with your opp." Last month, Anthropic released Super Bowl commercials that poked fun at OpenAI's plan to start testing ads for free users and ChatGPT Go subscribers in the U.S. Altman called the ads "clearly dishonest," saying: "I guess it's on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren't real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it." Anthropic's chief customer officer, Paul Smith, later told CNBC that it was focused on growing its business rather than making "flashy headlines," in a veiled swipe at OpenAI. Speaking at the summit after the photo, Altman told CNBC: "We still have some work to do to figure out the exact ad format that's going to work best." Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI staff and researchers, including Amodei, who left the company after disagreements over its direction. The company has marketed itself as a "safety-first" alternative. OpenAI and Anthropic have since raised billions of dollars of capital as they've competed for users, enterprise customers and market share. During his speech at the summit on Thursday, Amodei discussed the "serious risks" associated with AI, including the autonomous behavior of AI systems, their potential misuse by individuals and governments, and the potential for economic displacement. During his speech, Altman argued that the industry's understanding of AI safety should include "societal resilience," adding: "We believe no AI lab can deliver a good future on their own."

Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands at an AI summit weeks after OpenAI and Anthropic clashed in a tense Super Bowl ad war | Fortune

An awkward moment between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at an AI Summit Thursday captured the increasingly icy relations between two rival tech leaders who started off as colleagues. Onstage with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India AI Impact Summit, Altman and Amodei seemingly refused to touch during a photo op. Modi grabbed Altman's hand and lifted it for a group photo, but Altman and Amodei, standing side by side, did not clasp hands or make eye contact. While other leaders like Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's AI chief Alexandr Wang held hands for the shot, the rival CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic instead raised their fists in the air. "[About] the thing on stage. We didn't know -- I didn't know what was happening. I was confused, like Modi grabbed my hand and put it up and I just wasn't sure what [we were] supposed to be doing," Altman later told reporters. Still, the visible on-stage tension between Altman and Amodei illustrates the extent of the pair's fractured relationship and how it has escalated into a bitter rivalry, even though just a few years ago the two CEOs were on the same team. The most recent conflict between Altman and Amodei came after Anthropic, earlier this month, released a four-ad Super Bowl campaign titled "A Time and a Place," indirectly poking fun at OpenAI's recent move to include ads in ChatGPT. Each commercial opened with a single, loaded word splashed across the screen: "betrayal," "deception," "treachery," and "violation." In each of the commercials, ordinary people seeking advice from an artificially-sounding person standing in for the AI chatbot were interrupted by unwarranted advertisements. The AI assistant would begin answering helpfully before abruptly pivoting to pitch an unrelated product. The tagline was blunt: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude." Altman was quick to respond publicly to the campaign, saying in a lengthy post on X the company would never run ads in the way Anthropic showed in their advertisements. He also called Anthropic's ads "clearly dishonest" and accused the company of "doublespeak." "Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can't pay for subscriptions," Altman wrote in the post. Yet, several experts later praised the advertisement, including Australian marketing journalist Mark Ritson, who said in a post it was "the first piece of effective brand strategy the AI category has produced." Altman's response didn't counter Anthropic's attack as he might've thought it did, added Scott Galloway, a New York University marketing professor, during an episode of the podcast Prof G Markets. "When you're the market leader ... you don't reference the competition," Galloway said. The two AI leaders weren't always adversaries. Amodei worked under Altman at OpenAI from 2016 to 2020. His last role was vice president of research, where he focused on safety. During his time at OpenAI, he played an instrumental role in launching GPT-2 and GPT-3. He also co-invented "reinforcement learning from human feedback," which uses human input to train large language models to deliver the best outputs. But later Amodei, along with a small group of employees, became concerned about OpenAI's direction and what he perceived as a lack of safety involved in scaling up ChatGPT. In 2021, Amodei, along with his sister and cofounder Daniela Amodei and a dozen other ex-OpenAI employees started Anthropic with a mission to put safety first. The company released its large language model, Claude, in 2023. The employees who jumped ship from OpenAI believed two things, Amodei told Fortune's Jeremy Kahn at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in 2023. First, they believed if you pour more compute into large language models, they will greatly improve, and there's almost no limit to how advanced they can get. Second, they believed -- in addition to scaling up the models -- there needed to be a strong set of guardrails and safety considerations. "There were a set of people who believed in those two ideas. We really trusted each other and wanted to work together. And so we went off and started our own company with that idea in mind," Amodei told Fortune. When Altman was abruptly ousted as OpenAI's CEO in November 2023, the board reportedly approached Amodei to replace him, and even considered merging the two AI startups, Reuters reported. Amodei reportedly declined both offers. From a dozen employees at its start to now more than 2,500, Anthropic has rapidly evolved into a formidable competitor to OpenAI. The company has secured billions in funding from Google, Salesforce, and Amazon, among others, and last week raised $30 billion in a funding round that cemented it as one of the world's most valuable private companies with a post-money valuation of $380 billion. The awkward hand-holding moment Thursday comes less than two weeks after the companies' Super Bowl clash, suggesting a fallout is still lingering. While Altman said he was simply confused, the episode underscored that he and Amodei remain locked in a high-stakes battle for AI dominance that is increasingly playing out in public.

Summit photo op fails to unite AI startup rivals

New Delhi (AFP) - Tech bro rivalry is real, or at least it is for Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the CEOs of two leading US artificial intelligence startups. A video of the pair at a global AI summit in New Delhi on Thursday rapidly spread on social media after the former colleagues awkwardly refused to hold hands. Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Amodei, whose company Anthropic is known for its Claude chatbot, stood beside each other for the photo opportunity on stage. They were flanked by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian AI startup founder Pratyush Kumar in a line with other tech leaders including Google's Sundar Pichai. As the cameras snapped all raised their arms, hand-in-hand -- except for Altman and Amodei, who broke the chain. "This is so hilarious. Nothing can make Sam and Dario hold hands, not even the Prime Minister of India!" wrote X user Yuchen Jin. This week's AI Impact Summit is seeking consensus on how the world should handle artificial intelligence and regulate the fast-evolving technology. Amodei is a former vice president of research at OpenAI. He left the company in early 2021 to co-found Anthropic with several other senior OpenAI researchers. The two have been vocal in their criticism of each other's business models and philosophies. Indian lawmaker Milind Deora also took a dig at the pair. "Everyone else locked hands. @ChatGPTapp and @claudeai kept it strictly professional," he said on X along with a winking face emoji. "That awkward moment when Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to hold hands," wrote Madhav Chanchani, co-founder of The Arc, a tech media and research platform. "Instead they raised their fists."

Modi's AI Summit Turns Awkward as Tech Leaders Sam Altman and Dario Amodei Dodge Contact

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday invited leaders of some of the top artificial intelligence companies to gather on stage as part of a commitment to build more "inclusive and multilingual" AI around the world. And they did. But what caught some of the audience's attention, and later went viral on social media, was an awkward interaction between two rival tech leaders: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Modi, host of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, clasped hands with those closest to him -- Altman to his left and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to his right -- and beckoned all 13 tech leaders to lift their hands up in a chain, like theater actors at the end of a show. Everyone was holding hands except for Altman and Amodei, who stood next to each other but for several seconds awkwardly avoided hand contact. Both eventually put up their fists instead. The interaction quickly became a visual symbol of the deep rivalries in the AI industry, particularly between OpenAI and Anthropic, though Altman sought to brush off any deeper meaning. "I didn't know what was happening," Altman later said in a video interview with Indian media outlet Moneycontrol. "I was sort of confused, like when (Modi) grabbed my hand and put it up, and I just wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing." Anthropic declined to comment. The two AI developers have a history, one that predates the creation of OpenAI's hit product, ChatGPT, and Anthropic's competing chatbot Claude. Amodei worked at OpenAI before he and a group that included his sister, Daniela Amodei, quit to form Anthropic in 2021. The newer company promised a clearer focus on the safety of the better-than-human technology called artificial general intelligence that both San Francisco firms aim to build. OpenAI first released ChatGPT in late 2022, revealing the huge commercial potential of AI large language models that could help write emails and computer code and answer questions. Anthropic followed with its first version of Claude in 2023. Their different approaches spilled over into public debate earlier this month in the United States when Anthropic aired TV commercials during the Super Bowl that ridiculed OpenAI for the digital advertising it's beginning to place in free and cheaper versions of ChatGPT. While Anthropic has centered its revenue model on selling Claude to other businesses, OpenAI has opened the doors to ads as a way of making money from the hundreds of millions of consumers who get ChatGPT for free. Altman took to social media to criticize the TV commercials as dishonest. -- -- O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

Didn't know what I was supposed to do: Sam Altman on awkward moment with Anthropic's Dario Amodei - The Economic Times

The Prime Minister was at the centre with Pichai on his right and Altman on his left. Amodei, who previously worked at OpenAI but eventually left to co-found Anthropic, was standing next to Altman."I was sort of confused and didn't know what I was supposed to do," Sam Altman, the tech entrepreneur leading OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said on Thursday, describing an awkward onstage moment with rival AI firm Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei at the India AI Impact Summit. After the inaugural session of the summit, Altman and Amodei, who run two of the world's most closely watched AI companies, along with other tech moguls, went on stage for a group photograph with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, Sarvam cofounder Pratyush Kumar, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis were among other tech leaders on the stage for the photo-op. The Prime Minister was at the centre with Pichai on his right and Altman on his left. Amodei, who previously worked at OpenAI but eventually left to co-found Anthropic, was standing next to Altman. As cameras flashed, the Prime Minister and others held their hands up, while Altman and Amodei appeared briefly unsure whether to shake hands, clasp arms, throw their arms up in the air, or simply pose. While everyone else held each other's hands as they held them high, the two ended up with fists in the air. "I didn't know what was happening," Altman said when asked about the awkward moment. "I was sort of confused, like (Prime Minister) Modi grabbed my hand and put it up, and I just wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing. I thought it was the open clock." Altman, 40, and Amodei, three years older than him, worked together at OpenAI till 2019. Amodei, his sister Daniela, along with other senior OpenAI researchers, left the company in 2020 due to disagreements with Altman and the board over the company's direction. The Amodei siblings subsequently founded Anthropic. After parting ways, Altman and Amodei have often differed on the approach to AI. Amodei was reportedly approached by the OpenAI board after it abruptly ousted Altman on November 17, 2023. Amodei had declined the offer, and Altman was brought back to lead the company just days later after a dramatic internal battle. The competition between the two AI companies has since intensified into an outright commercial battle, with Anthropic running satirical Super Bowl ads this year mocking OpenAI's plans to add advertising to ChatGPT.

Modi's AI Unity Pose Turns Awkward for Altman and Amodei

NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (Reuters) - ⁠When ⁠Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ⁠nudged speakers at the India AI summit to join and raise their hands in a symbolic show of unity, most executives obliged. Two did not: rivals Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The two, ⁠who are ⁠locked in one of Silicon Valley's fiercest commercial rivalries, were standing side by side as the 13 corporate leaders joined Modi on stage, but they kept their raised fists conspicuously apart. Altman appeared visibly uncomfortable, looking away as the others, including Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, went along with Modi's ⁠nudge ⁠and joined hands. The episode, ⁠captured on camera and widely shared across social media, drew amused and pointed reactions online, with many users ⁠describing it as emblematic of the "AI cold war" between OpenAI and Anthropic. "I didn't know what was happening on stage. I wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing," Altman later told news website ⁠Moneycontrol. OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Bill Gates ⁠pulled out of India's summit hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing a blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row and complaints of traffic chaos. However, the summit has attracted more than $200 billion in investment pledges. Anthropic was co-founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei and other former OpenAI employees who broke away over disagreements about safety, ⁠commercialisation, and Altman's leadership style. The rift has since hardened into a full-blown commercial war. At this year's Super Bowl, Anthropic aired satirical commercials taking a pointed jab at OpenAI's plans to introduce advertising inside ChatGPT. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Kate Mayberry)

The power couple that isn't: OpenAI CEO Altman, Anthropic boss Amodei decline to hold hands at AI Summit

Both leaders of artificial intelligence (AI) firms in India for the summit were invited on stage when union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the 'New Delhi Frontier AI Impact Commitments', a set of voluntary pledges that reflect a shared vision for inclusive and responsible AI. Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the chief executives of rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, were caught in an awkward moment at the India AI Impact Summit after they visibly refused to hold hands during a photo-op with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday. Both leaders of artificial intelligence (AI) firms in India for the summit were invited on stage when union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the 'New Delhi Frontier AI Impact Commitments', a set of voluntary pledges that reflect a shared vision for inclusive and responsible AI. On stage at Bharat Mandapam, Modi invited global technology leaders to join hands and raise them as a show of unity for the AI ecosystem. While others participants did so, Altman and Amodei, who were standing next to each other, did not link hands. Instead, they raised their fists separately, creating a visible break in the chain and an awkward beat that was quickly captured on video. It has since been shared widely on social media. Clips of the interaction have triggered a flood of memes and commentary online, with many users interpreting the gesture as a symbol of the growing rivalry between the two AI labs. Amodei, who was a former OpenAI research leader, left the company in 2021 and went on to cofound Anthropic, which now competes directly with OpenAI in building frontier AI models.

When AI can't fix egos: OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei skip hand-hold at Delhi AI Summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called for a shared and inclusive approach to artificial intelligence at the AI Impact Summit. However, a subtle moment on stage caught everyone's attention when Sam Altman and Dario Amodei stood side by side, not joining hands, while others held hands in a symbolic gesture. The two executives from OpenAI and Anthropic shared the dais with Modi and other tech leaders, including Sundar Pichai, but seemed uneasy standing side by side. Even as the summit projected unity, the visual of Altman and Amodei not joining hands during a group gesture drew attention in tech circles. Both leaders have been at the centre of growing competition between their companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the most influential players in the global AI race. Amodei founded Anthropic in 2021 after leaving OpenAI, citing differences over the direction of AI development, particularly on safety and commercial priorities, according to media reports. Before his departure, Amodei had served as OpenAI's vice president of research and was closely involved in building early large language models such as GPT-2 and GPT-3. Several colleagues left the company during 2020 and 2021 amid disagreements over strategy and governance. The rivalry has become more visible in recent weeks. Reports said Anthropic spent millions on commercials during the National Football League championship game that criticised OpenAI's reported plans to introduce advertising on ChatGPT. Responding to the campaign, Altman described the Anthropic advertisement as "deceptive" in a post on X. The tensions come alongside rapid growth for Anthropic. The Claude chatbot maker recently raised $30 billion in a funding round that more than doubled its valuation to $380 billion, underlining strong investor appetite for AI companies. Anthropic has also sharpened its focus on coding tools, with its Claude Code offering gaining traction among developers and enterprises. The company's latest plugins for its Cowork agent have triggered fresh debate in financial markets, with investors weighing how advanced AI models could reshape the global software industry.

OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs refuse to hold hands at India AI Summit

:: OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei avoid holding hands in a group photo at the India AI Impact Summit :: It comes less than two weeks after a Super Bowl ad clash, when Anthropic ran spots viewed as jabs at OpenAI The public awkwardness underscores a rift that traces back years. Amodei co-founded Anthropic in 2021 after departing OpenAI, where he served as vice president of research, amid reported disagreements over AI safety priorities and Altman's leadership style. The tensions have grown as both companies have ballooned in valuation.

Cold war or misunderstanding? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reacts to viral moment with Anthropic's Amodei

The clip gained attention due to their past connection, as Amodei left OpenAI and later started Anthropic. While India's AI Impact Summit widely got attention for the technologies displayed in the event, one of the things that went viral recently was a video clip of Altman and Amodei. The moment happened during a symbolic group photograph with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top technology leaders, including Google's Sundar Pichai, Meta AI's Alexandr Wang, Sarvam co‑founder Pratyush Kumar, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis. While the photograph was taken, the cameras caught OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Anthropic boss Dario Amodei in an awkward gesture that quickly went viral. While others raised their joined hands, Altman and Amodei lifted their fists beside each other. The brief scene sparked playful speculation online, with many interpreting it as a sign of rivalry. Altman has now explained the moment was a simple case of confusion and not any sign of personal tension. Altman was quick to address the buzz, as he later clarified that during the photo, he was unsure what gesture was expected. 'I didn't know what was happening. 'I was sort of confused and didn't know what I was supposed to do,' he told PTI. He added that Prime Minister Modi had lifted his hand, which contributed to the mix-up. Altman even joked that he initially thought it was 'the open clock', highlighting that the awkward moment was far from intentional or adversarial. Also read: India AI Impact Summit 2026: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calls for urgent AI regulations as superintelligence nears The clip attracted attention partly because of the shared history between Altman and Amodei, and the recent feud between the two had just added fuel to the fire. Dario Amodei was the Vice President of Research at OpenAI from 2016 to 2021. He was the head of the team that developed GPT-2 and GPT-3 and was also instrumental in the popularity of generative AI. However, he left the company in 2021 due to some disagreements about the company's future and then founded his own company, Anthropic, where he is working on the Claude AI models. Their past connection often draws public interest whenever the two appear together, and the recent photo moment was no exception. Also read: JioHotstar partners with OpenAI to roll out ChatGPT-powered voice and text search: How it works Aside from the viral moment, Altman took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the increasing influence of AI on work and society through the summit platform. He recognised that AI will change the nature of work but also provide new opportunities, citing the influence of past technologies that created new sectors and job opportunities.

AI cold war? Altman and Amodei's photo-op sparks speculation at India AI Impact Summit 2026

India AI Impact Summit: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the Day 4 of the event in the presence of industry leaders and delegates including influential names - Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and more. After delivering the keynotes, a brief but telling moment between two of the world's most influential AI leaders stole the spotlight at the mega AI event, offering a glimpse of competitive behaviour. During a group photo with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top technology executives, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic seemed unsure whether to clasp hands. Instead, the two settled on a raised-fist gesture, a subtle but noticeable departure from the more traditional pose used by others onstage. Also read: India AI Impact Summit 2026, PM Narendra Modi backs AI as a job creator, not a job killer The image quickly became viral online, prompting playful commentary. One startup founder joked that artificial general intelligence might arrive the day the two executives decide to hold hands, referring to their companies' intense rivalry. Amodei, for example, previously led OpenAI's research efforts before leaving in 2021 to co-found Anthropic with several former colleagues. The summit, held at Bharat Mandapam, drew hundreds of global AI leaders, academics, and technology executives to discuss the next stage of AI development. Amodei previously addressed delegates, stating that an inflection point was rapidly approaching. He claimed that AI systems are advancing at an exponential rate and could soon outperform humans in a variety of cognitive tasks. While such progress could lead to breakthroughs in healthcare and poverty reduction, he warned that if not properly managed, the same tools could amplify economic disruption and misuse. On the other hand, Altman maintained optimism about India's role in AI. He stated that the country is not only adopting AI but also emerging as a major force in shaping the future. As per him, India's scale of usage and developer energy makes it among the most important markets.