OpenAI has announced the start of testing advertisements within its popular “ChatGPT” application, in a move considered a major shift for one of the most widespread artificial intelligence applications in the world, used weekly by more than 800 million people.
The company stated in an official statement that the advertising test will begin in the United States before expanding globally, and the ads will appear to registered users of the free version of “ChatGPT,” in addition to subscribers to the “ChatGPT Go” plan, which costs $8 per month.
This plan is currently available in India, France, and other countries, with slightly higher limits on the number of possible requests and image creation.
In contrast, no ads will appear for “ChatGPT Plus,” “Pro,” or “Enterprise” subscribers, and the company confirmed that the ads will not affect the quality of artificial intelligence responses.
A new commercial step:
This decision comes amid increasing pressure on OpenAI to prove the feasibility of its massive investments in artificial intelligence. It is known that since its establishment, the company has operated on a non-profit system with a limited for-profit arm, but it announced in October 2025 the completion of its transition to a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), with the original non-profit entity retaining a 26% stake in the shares.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated that the company aims to achieve more than $20 billion in annual revenue in 2026, with plans to reach $110 billion by 2030, including approximately $2 billion from new products this year, which include advertising and e-commerce.
Advertising Mechanism:
Ads are scheduled to appear directly below ChatGPT’s responses in a clear box. For example, if a user requests recipes for a dinner party, they will first get an artificial intelligence response, and below it, ads related to the recipes will appear, such as hot sauces or nutritional ingredients, and the user can find out why the ad appears, reject it, and give feedback about it.
OpenAI is also considering offering interactive advertising experiences that enable the user to interact directly with the ad to make a purchase decision.
Data and User Protection Controls:
OpenAI confirmed that the ads will not share user data with advertisers, nor will they reveal personal conversations, nor will they use information such as age, location, or interests to target ads individually, and users can disable the personalization feature and erase the data used for ads at any time.
Also, during the experiment, ads will not appear to users under the age of 18, and ads will not be displayed next to sensitive topics such as health or politics.
