Topline
Tech giant OpenAI said Friday that it would begin serving ads to users on ChatGPT’s free and least-expensive plans in an effort to test new revenue models and achieve its elusive goal of profitability.
Key Facts
According to guidelines posted by OpenAI on Friday afternoon, responses in ChatGPT will not be influenced by ads, which will be clearly labeled, and conversations will not be accessible to advertisers.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X changes will apply to ChatGPT free and ChatGPT Go users, who pay a monthly subscription of $8.
Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise tiers will not be affected.
Altman pointed to Instagram as a model for the kind of ad experience users can expect, writing, “We will try to make ads ever more useful to users.”
Crucial Quote
“It is clear to us that a lot of people want to use a lot of AI and don’t want to pay, so we are hopeful a business model like this can work,” Altman wrote on X.
Big Number
2.5 billion. That’s the number of prompts users submit to ChatGPT daily, according to data obtained by Axios. Each of those prompts could now potentially be met with sponsored content depending on the user’s account tier.
How Openai’s Chatgpt Compares With Rivals From Google, Anthropic, More
While ChatGPT was the first to hit the market among major players, competitors like Google’s Gemini have been catching up, with Alphabet stock rising close to 80% over the past 6 months on its success. Unlike Google, OpenAI lacks a mature ad business, making subscriptions and enterprise deals its primary revenue sources so far. Anthropic’s Claude chatbot has also been gaining market share. According to a report by Menlo Ventures, as of mid 2025, Claude overtook ChatGPT as the most popular chatbot for enterprise-level clients. Meanwhile, Meta is investing heavily in building massive AI infrastructure. Chinese player Deepseek entered the race with an open-source model last January, gaining early dominance in the app store. On Monday, Google and Apple announced they “have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models,” uniting forces against OpenAI.
Key Background
OpenAI has been struggling with profitability since launching the number one AI chatbot in November 2022. Within months of becoming available to the public, ChatGPT garnered millions and eventually over 100 million users, but the cost of running and training large AI models, which involves high-powered data centers and hiring from a limited AI talent pool, has exceeded what OpenAI has been able to bring in with most users on free accounts. In November, Altman said the company was on track to wrap 2025 with $20 billion in annualized revenue. (A final figure has not been released.) The test comes as President Trump demands that tech titans like OpenAI help pay for new power plants to address the cost of electricity crisis brought about by AI data center consumption.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinadilicosa/2026/01/16/openai-will-test-ads-on-chatgpt/
