OpenAI Group PBC today announced plans to display ads in ChatGPT.
The company will start showing promoted offers to U.S. adults with free accounts in the coming weeks. Ads will also be displayed to consumers with a ChatGPT Go subscription. The plan, which became available in the U.S. today, costs less than half as much as OpenAI’s previous entry-level product tier.
The company previewed a single ad format in today’s announcement of the advertising service. It takes the form of a carousel that displays products relevant to the user’s prompt. If a consumer asks for recipe ideas, the carousel might display merchandise from a grocery delivery provider.
OpenAI’s announcement indicates that more ad formats will launch in the future. The company will eventually enable consumers to ask questions about a promoted product. If an ad isn’t relevant to a query, the user can dismiss it and provide OpenAI with feedback.
The company pledged not to share ChatGPT conversations with advertisers. For added measure, it plans to provide controls that will enable users to turn off ad personalization and clear their chat history.
The ad-supported ChatGPT Go plan that launched in the U.S. today costs $8 per month, or $12 less than the Plus tier that served as OpenAI’s entry-level offering until now. The new subscription provides 10 times higher message limit than free accounts. Additionally, users can upload large files and generate more images.
ChatGPT Go is powered by GPT-5.2 Instant, a lightweight algorithm from OpenAI’s flagship GPT-5.2 series of large language models. The chatbot’s other paid tiers use the more advanced models in the series. Go also lacks certain other features, most notably OpenAI’s Sora video generator and Codex programming agent.
Moving into the lucrative advertising market may make it easier for OpenAI to sustain its rapid sales growth. This past November, Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman stated that the company was expecting to end the year with annualized recurring revenue of more than $20 billion. That’s a nearly fourfold increase over 2024.
OpenAI is spending heavily to maintain its sales momentum. In September, The Information reported that the company was on track to end 2025 with a $8 billion loss. OpenAI reportedly expects that number to double this year and climb even higher in 2027. If the company’s ad business takes off, it may shorten its path to profitability.
In the more immediate future, OpenAI’s advertising push may help drive up investor interest in its initial public offering. The company is expected to list its shares in the second half of 2026 or early 2027. OpenAI will reportedly seek to sell at least $60 billion worth of stock at a $1 trillion valuation.
Image: OpenAI
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