ChatGPT is Getting Ads Despite Sam Altman Calling It “Uniquely Unsettling”

OpenAI is planning to test ads in ChatGPT in the coming weeks. The official announcement came after the company launched the affordable ChatGPT Go plan in the US for $8 per month. OpenAI says ads in ChatGPT will be rolling out to free and ChatGPT Go users. Those who are on the Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise tiers will not see any ads.

OpenAI Says Ads Won’t Influence ChatGPT Answers

Along with the announcement, OpenAI laid down its ad principles and said that responses in ChatGPT will not be influenced by ads. Ads will be separate, clearly labeled, and placed at the bottom of the response. You may see a “relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation“.

Notably, OpenAI says your private conversations with ChatGPT will not be shared with advertisers, and it will “never sell your data to advertisers.”

As for privacy control, you can turn off personalization and clear the data which are used for ads at any moment. In addition, conversations that include sensitive topics like health, mental health, or politics will not see any ads. If users don’t want to see ads in ChatGPT, they must subscribe to the ChatGPT Plus plan which costs $20 per month.

OpenAI will be initially launching ads in the US for logged-in adults in the coming weeks, and it will only apply to ChatGPT Free and Go users.

While there were earlier rumors that OpenAI is considering ads for ChatGPT, the company dismissed those reports immediately. In fact, in 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said advertising would be a “last resort” for ChatGPT and that “ads plus AI is sort of uniquely unsettling to me.”

Previously, Altman stated that “I kind of hate ads as an aesthetic choice” and said that he liked “that people pay for ChatGPT and know the answers they’re getting are not influenced by advertisers.” Despite his earlier stance, Altman now maintains his position and says “we will not accept money to influence the answer ChatGPT gives you.”