UPDATE: Ads have officially arrived, at least in my ChatGPT account. They’re larger than expected, and often not relevant to the conversation.
I’m using the free version, and have seen three ads so far. OpenAI announced a month ago that it would be rolling out to all users, and it seems to have ramped up for me this week. While OpenAI kept its promise to label the ads as sponsored, it did not deliver on its vision to make them “useful, entertaining, and help people discover new products and services.”
On mobile, one advertisement I saw took up nearly the entire screen. When I opened the keyboard to continue the conversation, I couldn’t see the last messages. This degraded the user experience since I had to scroll up to remember what I was responding to. This is where I could see ChatGPT start to lose some users, or, as it hopes, push them to upgrade to an ad-free plan.
This one is for Canva, which was very loosely related to the conversation I was having and certainly not “useful” or “entertaining.” I was discussing the design of something, with no intention of visiting Canva or designing something of my own. The ad was a nuisance.
On desktop, the ads appear much smaller but still struggle with relevance. In the first conversation, screenshotted below, a StubHub ad appeared while I was asking ChatGPT about an update in the AI industry, which felt fully irrelevant. It’s possible they will become more helpful as OpenAI signs up more advertisers.
In the second conversation, I was asking ChatGPT about the origin of someone’s name, and an Ancestry.com ad popped up. Certainly more relevant, but still not something I wanted.
A StubHub ad appears in ChatGPT (Credit: OpenAI)
An Ancestry.com ad appears in ChatGPT (Credit: OpenAI)
Original Story 1/16:
OpenAI is putting ads into ChatGPT in “the coming weeks,” as well as bringing its ChatGPT Go subscription tier to the US starting today.
The free ChatGPT and ChatGPT Go plans will have advertisements, which is the biggest news, given ChatGPT Go has already launched in 171 countries since August. For $8 per month, it offers more access to messaging, image creation, file uploads, and memory. The pricier plans, including ChatGPT Plus ($20) and Business and Enterprise, will not include ads. You also won’t see ads if you’re not logged in, which could be a way to good way to avoid them—for now.
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In a mockup, ChatGPT ads appear at the bottom of a chatbot’s response with a “Sponsored” label. They include links to click out to other sites and purchase. This could bring many more images to a standard ChatGPT conversation, which today is mostly text, aside from AI-generated images.
(Credit: OpenAI)
OpenAI says the ads will “not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you” and that the chatbot’s “answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you.” It also vows not to share the conversation with advertisers; however, it does seem to have certain settings that share data with advertisers, which you can toggle off.
“You can turn off personalization, and you can clear the data used for ads at any time,” OpenAI says. “We’ll always offer a way to not see ads in ChatGPT, including a paid tier that’s ad-free.”
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CEO Sam Altman told Stratechery in 2024 that he likes Instagram ads. “I love Instagram ads, they’ve added value to me, I found stuff I never would’ve found, I bought a bunch of stuff, I actively like Instagram ads.” He could be aiming for a similar result with ChatGPT.
“The best ads are useful, entertaining, and help people discover new products and services,” OpenAI says. Crucially, they are also lucrative, and OpenAI has to pay back its investors.
We may also see new kinds of advertisements, thanks to AI. “For example, soon you might see an ad and be able to directly ask the questions you need to make a purchase decision,” OpenAI says. That theoretically sounds like ChatGPT might suggest a $20 T-shirt you like, but you wonder if it comes in a long-sleeve version. You could ask the ad (retailer) directly, it could confirm there’s a long sleeve version, and then you click to go to the site to buy.
We’ll soon find out exactly what OpenAI has up its sleeve. Testing of the first formats starts “in the coming weeks and months” and will evolve over time.
OpenAI has reportedly been discussing ads in ChatGPT over the past year, and already faced user backlash after it tested “app suggestions” last month, which was a nudge for users to connect apps from partners like Target and Spotify for more in-depth answers.
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