OpenAI has begun rolling out advertising inside ChatGPT as it looks to build a sustainable revenue model to support the rapidly growing costs of AI development, the company announced.

The move comes after OpenAI faced backlash late last year when it tested app-style recommendations that some users perceived as intrusive ads. While the company scaled back those experiments, the latest rollout reflects mounting pressure to monetize ChatGPT, which serves hundreds of millions of users worldwide and requires significant spending on compute infrastructure, research talent, and model training.

OpenAI has said it aims to introduce ads in a way that does not compromise trust or overwhelm users, positioning them as contextual and relevant rather than disruptive. The shift underscores a broader trend across generative AI platforms, as companies balance user experience with the financial realities of operating large-scale AI systems.

Material by Iva Abadjievа

Images: Open AI