OpenAI has announced plans to begin testing advertisements in ChatGPT, marking a long-anticipated shift aimed at increasing revenue from its widely used chatbot, as the San Francisco-based company said on Friday that ads would roll out over the next several weeks in the free version of ChatGPT and in its $8-a-month ChatGPT Go plan. The move comes as OpenAI explores new income streams while considering a public stock offering and expanding its business-focused products across sectors including computer coding, health care, finance and law.
According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, OpenAI generated $13 billion in revenue last year and expects to triple that figure this year, even as it plans to spend about $115 billion between 2025 and 2029, largely on cloud computing services and data centers required to develop and operate artificial intelligence systems globally. With most ChatGPT users relying on the free version, the introduction of ads could help narrow the gap between revenue and soaring operational costs.
In a blog post, the company said ads would not alter ChatGPT’s answers or influence its content, stressing that “People trust ChatGPT for many important and personal tasks, so as we introduce ads, it’s crucial we preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable in the first place,” adding that users must trust responses are “driven by what’s objectively useful.” OpenAI said it would not sell personal data or conversations to advertisers, noting that ads would be tailored based on user queries and past searches, with an option to disable ad personalization, as the company continues experimenting with unobtrusive advertising formats in chat-based interfaces.