ChatGPT is about to get worse for free accounts
The days of ChatGPT being an ad-free experience are coming to an end. OpenAI is starting to roll out ads to free ChatGPT accounts, and people on the cheaper Go subscription plan will also see them.
OpenAI announced in a blog post: “Ads do not influence the responses ChatGPT gives you, and we keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers. » They will not be visible to people in the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers of ChatGPT.
It took time. The AI data centers that power ChatGPT, Sora, and other OpenAI services aren’t cheap, and even if the venture capital money doesn’t run out anytime soon, OpenAI’s goal is to eventually cover operational costs and turn a profit. The company already offers enterprise plans for teams and large businesses, paid subscriptions for power users, and billing for API usage, but ads are another easy way to generate revenue.
Advertisements aren’t just banners that appear between text messages. For example, someone asked for “ideas for my work potluck” and ChatGPT responded with a list of suggestions, followed by an ad for food delivery. The ad is in a separate box labeled “Sponsored”. At least for now, ChatGPT will not inject subtle product placements into normal responses.
The blog post also stated: “Advertisers do not have access to your chats, chat history, memories, or personal information. Advertisers only receive aggregate information about the performance of their ads, such as the number of views or clicks.”
OpenAI’s advertising revenue is not to the creators and publishers it has scooped up to reach $100 billion in funding and hundreds of millions of users. The company has deals with a limited number of publishers, like Axios and Future, but any other content is fair game for training AI models without payment.
Several companies also explained how they use ChatGPT ads. Adobe, everyone’s favorite tech company with no recent controversy, said it would run ads for Acrobat Studio and Firefly as an initial pilot test. Target, which already had a ChatGPT integration, will run ads on questions like “What countertop cooking appliances make everyday meals more convenient?”
Anthropic, which develops the Claude AI assistant, has promised to “remain ad-free” and even released a Super Bowl ad to publicize its decision. After the ad aired, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Twitter/X that Anthropic used “deceptive advertising to criticize theoretical misleading ads that aren’t real” and called the company “authoritarian.”
There will be probably There will be ads on all free AI apps and services at some point, but at least for now ChatGPT is the only big name rolling them out. Previous versions of Microsoft Copilot had ads (back when the service was known as Bing Chat), but current versions don’t appear to have them.
Source: OpenAI, Adobe, Target
