OpenAI’s announcement: Say hello to ads!

Less than two years ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he found the combination of ads and AI “uniquely unsettling” and that for OpenAI, it would be a “last resort”.

Now, as AI tech giants feel the pressure to monetize their models that have huge development and computing costs, the company behind ChatGPT, has taken to the last resort: testing ads in ChatGPT. Knowing advertisements will become a normal thing in AI assistants and chat bots is, as Altman put it, still unsettling.

On January 16th, OpenAI announced that in the upcoming weeks it would begin testing ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. for its free and Go subscribers. ChatGPT Go is a new low-tier subscription that costs $8 per month.

The AI tech giant mentioned that the introduction of ads was so that it could continue to offer ChatGPT for free and with fewer limits.

During the testing, ads will be displayed at the bottom of answers when a sponsored product or service is relevant to your conversation. OpenAI has said that ads will be clearly labeled and separated from the answer. Screenshot: OpenAI.

In the announcement, OpenAI highlighted the importance of user trust, “That means you need to trust that ChatGPT’s responses are driven by what’s objectively useful, never by advertising. You need to know that your data and conversations are protected and never sold to advertisers.”

It went on to detail its ad principles…

OpenAI’s ad principles detailed in its announcement of ad testing in ChatGPT. Screenshot: OpenAI.

OpenAI’s announcement outlines what it plans to do, and uses clever wording to ensure its users do not question what the addition of ads actually means. It says, “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you.’ and “We keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers, and we never sell your data to advertisers.”

OpenAI’s ad principles sound reassuring. But look closer, you will realize the testing of ads in ChatGPT (or any AI assistant - looking at you Atlas Browser) and the move to fund its development and rising costs via the ad-based business model raises concern which must not be ignored.

Turn ON Privacy in one click.

Get

AI & the ad-based business model

OpenAI’s move to introduce ads feels familiar because this happens all the time. Tech giants like Meta and Google make their billions off the ad-based business model, at the cost of the user’s privacy and user experience.

These companies:

• Offer their products for free
• Track your every move and click through invasive means like fingerprinting
• Collect and sell this personal data to third-parties
• Make it possible you see targeted ads everywhere: when you scroll Instagram, or use Gmail
• Preach privacy, but usually it’s “privacy washing”

So, by using the product, you become the product and pay with your data.

While OpenAI is emphasizing user choice, privacy, and the fact that ads will not influence the chat bot’s answers (for now), users have to be cautious. When we look at how other companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have changed we learn that what companies say and do change all the time - especially if the change means boosted revenue.

• Remember, WhatsApp said it would never add advertisements to its messenger? Well, it was acquired by Meta, and now WhatsApp not only has ads, but also Meta AI which cannot be turned off. So, if you’re looking for a WhatsApp alternative, you’ve come to the right place.

• When Google first started its search engine, it had no ads. Now, Google makes the majority of its profit off ads and places them everywhere - in YouTube, Gmail, and even in its AI overviews on Google Search.

These are just two examples of companies that have dramatically changed since their early days, and turned into data hungry tech giants, and OpenAI will most likely not be the exception. Needless to say, this is unfortunately quite a normal practice.

Turn ON Privacy in one click.

Get

Ads in AI will become normal

The growing cost and competition to maintain, train, and develop AI is very high. Because of this, it’s understandable that these companies have to look at how to increase profits. Because most people do not want to pay to use a service, tech giants resort to introducing ads.

In an interview Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, openly said that the company was branching from AI into the agentic browser sphere with its AI Comet browser because by doing so, Comet can collect more user data, even what its users are doing outside of the AI app. This better helps to sell target ads. So here’s another example of how AI tech companies are already using user data for ads.

Is Google’s Gemini next?

While OpenAI made the big announcement, Google said Gemini wouldn’t get ads (for now). In an interview at the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Google’s DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told Axios that Google’s Gemini assistant (yes, the AI getting pushed into every Google product that people want to disable) currently had, “no plans” to introduce ads. But looking at Google’s past actions - placing ads in every product - we’d take what was said with a pinch of salt.

Think about it, Google makes its profits off advertising: ads in Gmail, ads in Search, ads in YouTube. What’s stopping them from sneaking ads in Gemini next?

The roll-out of ads in ChatGPT marks a turning point for AI. While OpenAI promises to protect user privacy and emphasizes maintaining user trust, history makes it clear that investors’ pressure and revenue goals usually override initial promises.

For users concerned about their privacy and the direction AI is going one thing must be clear: if its free, you’re the product.