OpenAI Begins Testing Ads in U.S. For Free, Go Subscription Tiers

OpenAI begins testing ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. for Free and Go subscription tiers, it said in a blog post. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads it said.

The San Francisco–based AI company said that ChatGPT serves hundreds of millions of users, and ads on the Free and Go tiers help fund the infrastructure needed to keep the service fast, reliable, and improving.

It said that, “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. When you see an ad, they are always clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer.”

OpenAI explained that during testing, the system selected which ad to show by matching advertiser content with the user’s current conversation, past chats, and previous interactions with ads.

It explained with an example, “If you're researching recipes, you may see ads for meal kits or grocery delivery. If there are multiple advertisers, we'll select the one that is most relevant to your chat to show you first.”

It also said that during the test, ads won’t be shown to users under 18 or alongside sensitive topics like health, mental health, or politics, and the rollout will expand carefully as safeguards improve. It also said that if users wanted to opt out of ads in the free tier then they could that with reduced daily messages.

Privacy concerns

Further addressing privacy concerns it said that advertisers did not have access to the users chats, history, memories or any personal details. OpenAI said that advertisers only received information on how their ads were performing and views and clicks on them.

It said,” As the advertising program grows, user privacy and safety will remain a priority, with safeguards to limit targeted ads, carefully vet advertisers, and reduce the risk of scams or misleading content,”

Controlled ads

It said that users will be able to control the ads they see on the AI chat platform, including dismissing ads, sharing feedback, learning how and why users are being shown a particular ad and they can further delete ad data with one tap, and managing ad personalization at any time.

On future expansion the ChatGPT maker said that the goal of this test was to learn how ads fit into the experience before any wider rollout. The company is also exploring how different types of businesses might participate and may expand ad formats and models over time, it said.

OpenAI has launched a dedicated “Advertise with ChatGPT” page inviting businesses to register their interest in advertising on the platform and receive updates as the programme develops.

The decision had drawn criticism from rival Anthropic, which aired Super Bowl ads and public messages mocking the idea of ads inside AI conversations and touting its own chatbot, Claude, as ad-free. Anthropic argued that ads don’t belong in personal AI chats

In response, Sam Altman said that OpenAI draws a firm boundary between ads shown around the product and the content of the model’s answers. He reiterated that the company opposes any form of advertising that would influence or alter ChatGPT’s responses, maintaining that results remain independent of commercial relationships.