OpenAI to Introduce Ads in ChatGPT to Secure Firepower Amid Intensifying Competition

[Financial News]

OpenAI declared on the 16th (local time) that it will begin running ads in ChatGPT, its own artificial intelligence (AI) model.
As competition with Google LLC and Anthropic PBC intensifies, the company plans to cover part of the massive investment needed to upgrade ChatGPT’s capabilities through advertising revenue.
According to the Financial Times (FT), OpenAI said it will initially test ads on its free chatbot and on the lowest-priced tier of its paid service.
Ads will begin rolling out in the coming weeks and will be placed beneath ChatGPT’s responses. OpenAI explained that the ad copy will be clearly labeled as advertising and will be tailored to match the user’s query and the answer provided.
OpenAI, which is currently valued at 500 billion dollars, is planning large-scale investments amid fierce AI competition. Over the next 10 years, it intends to invest 1.4 trillion dollars—close to three times its current valuation. Until now, this enormous funding has been covered through external equity investments, but as that approach hits its limits, the company appears to be turning its attention to advertising as well.
Sources say OpenAI expects to secure “low billions” of dollars in ad revenue this year, implying anticipated advertising income of roughly 2 to 3 billion dollars.
OpenAI had initially planned to review advertising toward the end of 2024, but as competition in the AI market intensified to the point where Google LLC’s Gemini 3 prompted a so-called “code red,” it appears to have temporarily shelved that original timetable.
Advertising has long been the solid backbone of Google LLC’s success.
Google LLC, together with Meta Platforms Inc., has achieved rapid growth by using the money earned from search and social media advertising as its financial base.
OpenAI had also considered benchmarking these companies by introducing ads, but it hesitated out of concern that doing so could undermine trust in AI-generated answers and fuel suspicions that responses were being shaped by specific commercial interests.
However, the company is now seen as having concluded that it has secured sufficient trust and that advertising is unavoidable in order to obtain the financial firepower needed for fierce competition.
Google LLC earned more than 250 billion dollars from advertising last year, accounting for around 80% of its total revenue.
OpenAI’s announcement that it will introduce ads is effectively an acknowledgment of the limits of a purely paid-subscription model, and if this move succeeds, advertising is likely to become the norm for AI models going forward.


dympna@fnnews.com Song Kyung-jae Reporter