As the artificial intelligence startup looks for new revenue streams in the face of growing financial difficulties, OpenAI said this week that it will start testing ads in ChatGPT for the first time.
In the upcoming weeks, OpenAI will begin testing advertisements in the United States, restricted to users of the free tier and the more recent $8/month ChatGPT Go plan, the firm announced in an official statement. When a sponsored product or service is pertinent to the discussion, advertisements will show up at the bottom of responses and will be identified as such. Ads won’t be displayed to users of Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscription tiers.
Protections And Promises Regarding Privacy
OpenAI stressed that ChatGPT’s responses won’t be impacted by advertisements, and chats will be kept confidential. According to the company, customers will have control over ad personalization settings, including the option to completely off personalization, and it will not sell user data.
Users under the age of eighteen will not see advertisements, nor will they be displayed next to delicate subjects like politics, mental health, or health. According to OpenAI, advertising is meant to support free and inexpensive usage tiers while preserving user confidence, highlighting the fact that the business “does not optimize for time spent on ChatGPT.”
An Inversion Of Previous Rhetoric
The action is a significant departure from CEO Sam Altman’s earlier position. Altman stated in 2024 that “ads-plus-AI is sort of uniquely unsettling to me” and referred to advertising as a “last resort.” But by the middle of 2025, Altman’s tone softened, admitting on OpenAI’s podcast that he was “not totally against” advertising and that he actually liked ads on Instagram and other sites.
The change was hinted at in December 2024 when CFO Sarah Friar told the Financial Times that although OpenAI had “no active plans to pursue advertising,” the team was willing to look into other sources of income.
Pressures From Money Increase
OpenAI is facing serious financial challenges at the time of the advertising campaign. The corporation anticipates spending $17 billion in 2026, up from $9 billion in 2025, according to The Information. According to OpenAI, it won’t turn a profit until 2029 or 2030.
According to the company’s projections, advertising may bring in $1 billion beginning in 2026 and possibly reach $25 billion by 2029. Approximately 95% of ChatGPT’s users presently use the service without making any money, according to internal documents.
In the meantime, competition is getting fiercer. Over the past year, Google Gemini’s market share has increased from 5.7% to 21.5%, according to Similarweb data, while ChatGPT’s share has decreased from 86% to 64%. The introduction of the advertisement was made concurrently with OpenAI’s worldwide launch of ChatGPT Go, which is currently accessible at localized prices in over 170 countries.