Ads are everywhere today. With Google at the forefront of the advertising business, it wasn’t particularly surprising when AI Mode in Search started seeing ads not long ago. However, Google was quick to brush aside rumors of ads coming to its Gemini chatbot, at least for the time being.
While Gemini may have survived the allure of ads so far, one of its key competitors in the industry hasn’t. On Friday, OpenAI said it would bring ads to the ChatGPT Go and free tiers. ChatGPT Go was previously limited to several dozen countries worldwide, but is now expanding to the US for $8/month.
OpenAI didn’t offer a specific timeline for ads on the aforementioned ChatGPT tiers, but said testing will begin in the US over “the coming weeks.” In the meantime, the ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise tiers will remain ad-free. In the company’s words, ads in ChatGPT “can play a part in making intelligence more accessible to everyone.”
To start, we plan to test ads at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation. Ads will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer. You’ll be able to learn more about why you’re seeing that ad, or dismiss any ad and tell us why. During our test, we will not show ads in accounts where the user tells us or we predict that they are under 18, and ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health or politics.
It was only a matter of time
OpenAI says it won’t share any of the chats with advertisers, while also letting users disable personalization and any data used to show ads. The company also provided some examples of what ads would look like on the ChatGPT mobile apps.
These ad formats may not be set in stone, though, with OpenAI saying it will use the feedback gathered during the testing period to “refine” how ads are displayed.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT Go’s availability in the US means users now have three paid consumer plans to choose from, in addition to the $20/month ChatGPT Plus and the $200/month Pro tier.
For $8/month, ChatGPT Go offers 10x more messages, file uploads, and image creations than the free tier, in addition to providing a longer memory and context window.
The adoption of ads in OpenAI’s free tier would make Google Gemini a more viable alternative for many users. However, it’s unclear how long Google will resist the temptation to introduce ads, especially given OpenAI’s decision.
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We’ve known about ads coming to ChatGPT since late November, courtesy of X user Tibor Blaho, who uncovered references to ads in version 1.2025.329 (beta) of the ChatGPT Android app.
OpenAI’s decision to monetize its product through ads is understandable, particularly since it doesn’t have the resources of a juggernaut like Google.
