Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
If you’ve followed business news over the past few weeks, you may know that AI companies are financially suffering in spite of the investor euphoria and optimism. Companies with deep pockets like Google and Meta have been spared the worst, but startups like OpenAI are banking on a continuous stream of funding from those very tech giants to stay afloat. And in response, OpenAI appears to be turning to a familiar solution from the tech playbook: advertising in ChatGPT.
That’s right, your ChatGPT chats will soon display ads along the bottom of the screen. Most users, including myself, are understandably upset by this news. But what makes it worse is that OpenAI isn’t stopping at the free tier but also alienating the people who are willing to pay for the new $8 per month Go tier.
So while we were initially quite optimistic about the new affordable ChatGPT Go subscription, I’m not thrilled about keeping the subscription, especially as Google’s new AI Plus tier might undercut it in terms of both features and price.
Ads in ChatGPT, and why they’re problematic
According to OpenAI, ads you’ll soon see in ChatGPT will appear alongside the chatbot’s responses and won’t affect the actual answers you get. Ask a question about smartphones and ChatGPT won’t tell you to buy a Samsung device just because the company paid off OpenAI. This is certainly the best case scenario — ads embedded within responses would be much more effective but will make the chatbot’s responses far less trustworthy.
However, that doesn’t mean ChatGPT won’t show targeted ads — in fact, we know the opposite is true. Like any modern ad platform, relevance is the entire point. If you use the chatbot for personal finance advice, it’s easy to imagine being inundated with sponsored credit cards, investment apps, or loan services. OpenAI could block problematic categories like health, but self-regulation has rarely worked in the tech industry. And the more users rely on ChatGPT for sensitive, high-intent queries, the more valuable those ad placements become.
Ads in ChatGPT will be annoying, even if they're not as intrusive as they could be.
You could draw parallels between ads in ChatGPT and sponsored links in Google Search based on the above screenshot, but I think the comparison quickly falls apart. A search engine doesn’t respond like it’s your friend or pretend to understand your goals. It simply presents a list of links, and sponsored results appear in the same format.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, has developed a reputation for being conversational and even empathetic. OpenAI says ads will just sit distinctly beside responses but conceptual screenshots already make it look like an endorsement. People are more likely to trust a friendly recommendation than something vying for attention online.
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