OpenAI has confirmed it will begin testing advertising inside ChatGPT for users on its Free and Go plans in the United States. Ads won’t influence answers, won’t use personal conversation data and won’t appear for paid users or around sensitive topics. Instead, they’ll sit below responses as clearly labelled sponsored recommendations, shown only when they’re contextually relevant to the conversation.
This is a significant shift. Until now, ChatGPT has been one of the few large consumer platforms operating without advertising. Introducing ads marks the first real step towards monetising conversational AI at scale. And while OpenAI says it’s taking a cautious approach, the move raises questions about trust and user experience…
How ChatGPT Ads Will Work
OpenAI outlined its approach to advertising:
- Ads will appear below ChatGPT’s responses when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service that matches your conversation
- They’ll be clearly labelled, visually separated from the actual answer, and you’ll be able to dismiss them
- Ads won’t be shown to users under 18 or alongside sensitive topics like health, mental health, or politics
- Conversation data won’t be sold to advertisers, and you can turn off personalisation if you’d rather not see targeted ads
- Paid tiers (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise) will remain ad-free.
OpenAI are promising that ads won’t influence ChatGPT’s answers – responses will still be based on what’s most helpful to you, not what’s most profitable to them. This isn’t an open ad marketplace yet. No buying models, targeting options, or performance metrics have been announced. For now, this is a controlled test to see whether ads can exist inside a conversational interface without damaging trust.
Why OpenAI is Doing This Now
Ads inside AI assistants were an inevitable step – it works for Google and Meta and it’s a natural (if controversial) option for AI platforms too. Running models at this scale is expensive and OpenAI has been clear that ads are about keeping access affordable (it’s a way to expand access to AI tools without forcing everyone onto paid plans). The timing aligns with ChatGPT Go launching globally at £8/month (a lower price point than Plus or Pro).
What’s different here is intent. Unlike social feeds or display networks, ChatGPT interactions are purposeful – people are asking specific questions, researching options and trying to make decisions. That creates a very different advertising environment because poorly matched messages will immediately feel intrusive. Useful, well-timed recommendations will hopefully feel closer to assistance than interruption.
The Impact on Search and Discovery
This opens up an entirely new type of ad placement. Instead of traditional search ads where people are actively looking for products, these are conversational moments – someone’s planning a dinner party, researching a trip or solving a problem, and your product appears as a relevant solution. Ads won’t influence answers, though, which means you still need strong SEO and GEO foundations to appear naturally in AI outputs.
ChatGPT is also no longer just a research tool influencing opinions indirectly through citations and summaries. It may also become a place where paid visibility sits alongside organic recommendations. Will ChatGPT subtly favour responses that create ad opportunities? The challenge is maintaining useful (and unbiased) answers that people can rely on – if an ad feels intrusive, it might break the trust people have built with ChatGPT.
The Last Word
How OpenAI handles ads inside a conversational interface could set the standard for the entire industry in the years ahead as they try to prove that ads and trust can coexist in AI tools. For now, advertising within ChatGPT is still in early testing, with no confirmed timeline for wider rollout.
The brands best placed to benefit will be the ones building trust, relevance, and visibility across search and AI. If you want to understand how SEO, GEO and traditional paid media are helping to shape AI discovery in high-intent moments, let’s talk.