Ads Are Coming To ChatGPT Free And Go Tiers, Testing In Progress

We’re likely past the point where AI companies are willing to subsidize the costs of running large language model chatbots for the whole internet, and as the number of paid subscribers plateaus, this is where advertising comes in. OpenAI has started testing advertising inside the ChatGPT app for some users in the United States, in hopes to keep things sustainable in the long run.

Incoming: ChatGPT Ads

For now, the advertisements are expected to be applicable towards free users and ChatGPT Go subscribers, the latter of which is the cheapest paid tier (at RM38.99/month) with relatively limited features, introduced in Malaysia since last October (and is now available worldwide). Pricier tiers, including Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise, will remain ad-free.

Here’s how it’ll be implemented: the ads will appear “at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation,” which will be “clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer.” OpenAI noted that ChatGPT’s conversational nature “create possibilities for people to go beyond static messages and links,” as users can directly inquire the chatbot of the products advertised before making a purchase.

For the duration of this test, ads will only be shown to adult users, and it will not show up when sensitive topics (health, mental health, politics, etc) are being discussed. In its words as follows, the company also promises to adhere to its ads principles, which includes:

• Mission alignment: Our mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity; our pursuit of advertising is always in support of that mission and making AI more accessible.
• Answer independence: Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled.
• Conversation privacy: We keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers, and we never sell your data to advertisers.
• Choice and control: You control how your data is used. You can turn off personalization, and you can clear the data used for ads at any time. We’ll always offer a way to not see ads in ChatGPT, including a paid tier that’s ad-free.
• Long-term value: We do not optimize for time spent in ChatGPT. We prioritize user trust and user experience over revenue.

We’ll leave it up to you to determine if these bullet points are convincing enough – there’s no shortage of cases where privacy promises are broken, or features become predatory in today’s world. Perhaps more notably, the financial sustainability of ChatGPT as a company is very much still a billion-dollar-question at this point, and its CEO Sam Altman famously said that advertising is a “last resort” option to keep it sustainable. Even with the ads money, will it be enough?

Pokdepinion: Not surprised – but at the rate they’re burning cash (and hoarding memory supply), it’s probably not even close to filling up the financial black hole they’re creating.