OpenAI has confirmed that it will begin introducing advertising on ChatGPT, marking a shift in how the AI company plans to scale access to its products while building a sustainable revenue model. The San Francisco-based firm said it will start testing ads in the coming weeks for logged-in adult users in the United States. Advertising will be limited to the Free tier and the ChatGPT Go plan, while higher-priced subscriptions such as Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise will remain completely ad-free.
The move comes as OpenAI continues to position ChatGPT as an everyday AI assistant for a broad user base. Since August, the company has expanded the ChatGPT Go plan—a lower-cost subscription—across 171 countries. Priced at $8 per month in the US, Go offers more features than the free version, including higher usage limits, image generation, file uploads, memory, and extended messaging capabilities.
According to OpenAI, advertising will help the company ease usage restrictions for free users and allow more people to access ChatGPT without upgrading to premium plans. Ads will appear exclusively on the Free and Go tiers and will not affect how responses are generated or ranked.
Explaining the company’s approach, CEO Sam Altman wrote on X, “We are starting to test ads in ChatGPT free and Go (new $8/month option) tiers. Here are our principles. Most importantly, we will not accept money to influence the answer ChatGPT gives you, and we keep your conversations private from advertisers. It is clear to us that a lot of people want to use a lot of AI and don’t want to pay, so we are are hopeful a business model like this can work.”
In a blog post, OpenAI emphasised that advertisements will be clearly labelled and displayed separately from regular AI responses. The company said ChatGPT’s answers will continue to be based solely on what is most helpful to users, without any influence from advertisers.
Addressing privacy concerns, OpenAI stated that user conversations will not be shared with advertisers and that chat data will not be sold for ad targeting. Users will have control over ad personalisation and the ability to clear any data used for advertising purposes. During the initial testing phase, ads will appear at the bottom of responses when there is a relevant sponsored product or service, and users will be able to see why an ad is shown and dismiss it.
OpenAI also clarified that ads will not be shown to users under 18 and will not appear alongside sensitive topics such as health, mental health, or politics.
