OpenAI says reports of ChatGPT ads are wrong as Google brings ads to AI products
There are billion$ of reasons why OpenAI would turn to ads.
A number of ChatGPT users have recently reported seeing what appear to be ads within OpenAI’s flagship product, noting a prompt reading, “Shop for home and groceries. Connect Target.” Separately, BleepingComputer reported on a leak late last month that showed the company was internally testing ads on ChatGPT.
But the company has pushed back and said that’s not the case. “There are no live tests for ads — any screenshots you’ve seen are either not real or not ads,” Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley wrote on X Friday. Meanwhile, Chief Researcher Officer Mark Chen said the company has turned off a feature that could feel like an ad.
Of course, as a business in dire need of additional revenue sources to finance its exorbitant costs — and as one that’s already staffed up an internal ad business — it makes complete sense that OpenAI would expand to ads. Its biggest competitor, Google, has already been opening up the search giant’s massive advertising spigot to its AI products.
But perhaps it also makes sense why the company is being cagey about getting into ads. A year ago, CEO Sam Altman called ads within an AI product “uniquely unsetting” and said they would be a “last resort” for OpenAI. Additionally, one could argue the saturation of ads on Google hurt the user experience and made room for competitors like OpenAI in the first place.
Keep in mind that throughout the history of business, whether we like it or not, products that initially shunned ads — from cable TV to streaming services to your refrigerator or your car — will eventually adopt them when companies figure out users are hooked enough on the product that they’ll tolerate the pain.
