OpenAI is now doing what everyone thought it would do eventually: bring ads to ChatGPT.
After weeks of user frustration with what appear to be ads creeping into chats, OpenAI has finally laid its cards on the table. In a blog post published on Friday, the company confirmed that it plans to start testing ads on ChatGPT for US users in the free and Go tiers, while promising that paid tiers like Pro, Business, and Enterprise will remain ad-free.
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OpenAI insists that this is not a betrayal of trust, but a trade-off.
“As ChatGPT becomes more powerful and widely used, we’re looking for ways to continue to provide more intelligence to everyone,” the company wrote, citing ads as a way to expand access without forcing users to pay. The company also emphasized a strong line between responses and advertising, saying that users need to trust that ChatGPT responses are “driven by what is clearly useful, not by advertising,” and that conversations will not be shared or sold to advertisers.
That confirmation comes after a rough few months. In December, ChatGPT users flooded social media with screenshots of chatbot responses suggesting apps, stores, or products that were completely unrelated to their information.
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OpenAI backtracked, saying those “suggestions” were timed incorrectly, but the difference never came. Even users who pay $200 a month for ChatGPT Pro said the experience felt stale.
Behind the scenes, however, advertising was clearly on the street. Reporting earlier this month revealed that OpenAI has been quietly testing ad concepts internally, experimenting with layouts and exposures designed to create what employees described as a “new breed of digital ads” that won’t fire users as quickly.
And CEO Sam Altman has never been subtle about warming to the idea. Back in June, he said he wasn’t “totally against” ChatGPT ads, and even called Instagram ads “cool” — a quote that almost anyone would have expected. At the time, Altman emphasized that the ads would require extreme care to get them right. Now, that theoretical future is becoming a reality.
OpenAI says the ads will be clearly labeled, placed separately from responses, and initially only shown if there’s a “relevant sponsored product or service” tied to the conversation. Users will be able to block ads or turn off personalization entirely, and ads won’t appear on accounts under 18 or around sensitive topics like health or politics.
Whether that’s enough to prevent ChatGPT from feeling like another feed remains to be seen. But with operational costs reportedly in the billions and AI companies racing to prove sustainable business models, the era of the ad-free chatbot was likely to remain short-lived.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringes Ziff Davis’ copyrights in training and using its AI programs.
