After weeks of teasing, OpenAI has begun testing advertisements inside ChatGPT in the US, marking a major evolution in the product’s business model and user experience. The rollout affects those with Free tier plans and the new lower-cost ChatGPT Go plan. People on paid tiers such as Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise will remain free of ads. 

The company says this early ad experiment is part of its effort to support broader access to powerful AI features while helping fund the infrastructure and development that keep ChatGPT running at scale. 

The company says that ads will be clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the chatbot’s answers.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

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Controlled advertising and privacy

According to OpenAI, the ads will not influence the chatbot’s responses or compromise privacy. Conversations and personal chat data will not be shared with advertisers. You will also have control over your ad experience, including toggles for personalization or the option to opt out entirely in exchange for fewer free messages. 

As part of the rollout, each ad is matched to the topic that a user is already discussing, though safeguards are in place to prevent ads from appearing in sensitive contexts, such as health or political discussions. 

The company emphasizes that this initial phase is a test-and-learn opportunity. Feedback from early users will help shape how ads are refined and potentially expanded in the future. OpenAI says it will use insights from this pilot to better balance monetization with user experience.

The broader implications

The introduction of ads in ChatGPT comes amid growing competitive pressure in the AI industry and heightened expectations around sustainable revenue models for large AI platforms. While the move has drawn mixed reactions from users and industry observers, OpenAI maintains that the ads are meant to subsidize free and low-cost access.

As the testing continues, OpenAI’s approach will likely influence how other AI companies think about monetization and the role of advertising in conversational AI tools, though some platforms — like Anthropic — have “promised” to never incorporate ads. Anthropic even ran a series of Super Bowl commercials, making fun of the idea of ads showing up in AI discussions. In one of them, for instance, a young man asks AI for help getting six-pack abs, and the AI, in the form of a personal trainer, starts helping him, then begins hawking fictional insoles that will make him taller.

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