I Heard ChatGPT Will Now Have Ads 🤔 ...
Everyone's mad. But I think they shouldn't be.
Scrolling through Twitter, I saw a tweet from Sam Altman, which might be one of OpenAI’s most controversial announcements yet: ads are coming to ChatGPT’s free tier.
To me, the premise is simple enough: If you’re using ChatGPT for free, you’ll start seeing ads. If you’re paying for a subscription, no ads.
According to the tweet, the promise is that the ads won’t influence ChatGPT’s responses, that conversations will remain private from advertisers, and that everything will be clearly labeled.
Honestly… I’ve been expecting this…
OpenAI’s business model has always felt like a race to the bottom. They’re burning through cash faster than they can raise it, which is not sustainable. But I think it takes running a business to understand that things of value aren’t sustainable if they’re not generating enough revenue, unless you’re running a charity.
Then, my concern is… They’re only showing ads to free users. And free users are probably the worst group to show ads to. It’s like trying to monetize the people who’ve already told you they don’t want to pay for your product. But this is not uncommon; Spotify does the same.
Now, I know everyone’s losing their minds about ads “ruining” ChatGPT, but personally, I love seeing highly relevant ads. I mean ads that actually help. I’ve found some genuinely good stuff through Instagram ads, which I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.
Plus, think about it: the conversations we have with ChatGPT are insanely high-intent. You're asking how to fix your car, plan a trip, learn to code, start a business. ChatGPT knows exactly what you need in real-time. Delivering targeted ads in that context is almost too easy.
Safe to say… If OpenAI can figure out how to show me helpful ads, not just random intrusive noise, I don’t have a problem.
What I’m really curious about… is whether other LLMs will follow the same approach.
If OpenAI can make ads work without destroying the user experience, we might see everyone else sprint toward the same direction. I know Google and Meta will love this idea, hehe, they are the gods of ads already. Anthropic will probably resist the longest, given their positioning around ethics and AI safety, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to run faster than the math eventually.
Nevertheless, we’ll see if OpenAI can pull it off without turning ChatGPT into the digital equivalent of Times Square.
My good guess is… They’ll figure it out, because they have to.