Key Takeaways: Ads are rolling out in free and Go ChatGPT tiers : OpenAI is testing clearly labeled, contextually targeted ads to subsidize access for users who don’t pay for subscriptions.
: OpenAI is testing clearly labeled, contextually targeted ads to subsidize access for users who don’t pay for subscriptions. Responses remain separate from advertising : Ads won’t influence ChatGPT’s answers, and OpenAI insists it will never sell user conversations to advertisers.
: Ads won’t influence ChatGPT’s answers, and OpenAI insists it will never sell user conversations to advertisers. Existing regulations may not fit : Lawmakers designed frameworks like the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) for traditional platforms, which leave gaps when it comes to conversational AI advertising.
: Lawmakers designed frameworks like the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) for traditional platforms, which leave gaps when it comes to conversational AI advertising. New rules needed: Governments may need to adapt or create policies to govern transparency, user protection, and accountability for conversational AI advertising.
It seems like OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has a new favorite sport: backpedaling. At an event at Harvard University in May 2024, he said that using advertising in ChatGPT would be a ‘last resort’ and that ‘ads plus AI is sort of uniquely unsettling.’
Well, things have since taken a rather drastic turn. On Friday, January 16, OpenAI announced that it’s testing impression-based advertising in ChatGPT with US users, and that this new feature will roll out to the free and Go tiers of the platform around February. This all points to a shift in how companies are monetizing generative AI, and it definitely raises concerns around transparency, data governance, and regulatory compliance.
And with any change comes questions:
What does this mean for me as an everyday ChatGPT user?
Is the large language model (LLM) going to use our data to serve personalized ads?
How will we know what is an ad and what isn’t?
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