An example of what ads might look like in ChatGPT (OpenAI)

OpenAI set to start rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users

OpenAI says user conversations will be kept private from advertisers, and answers will not be influenced by ads.

1/16/26 1:58PM

It was bound to happen at some point. OpenAI has finally disclosed the details of how it plans to roll out ads for users of ChatGPT.

The company announced today in a blog post that in the coming weeks, ads will start rolling out to users of the $8-per-month ChatGPT Go product and the free tier of the chatbot. OpenAI listed some guiding principles that will steer its approach to ads:

ChatGPT will not offer answers that are influenced by ads, but will always optimize answers based on “what’s most helpful to you,” and the ads will be clearly labeled and separate from the chat.
ChatGPT conversations will be kept private and not shared with advertisers, and OpenAI says it will “never sell your data to advertisers.”
ChatGPT users can turn off personalization (which is used for ad targeting) and can clear this data at any time. The company also pledged to always offer a paid ad-free tier of the product.

OpenAI also said that the company does not “optimize for time spent in ChatGPT,” something that other social media apps like TikTok and Meta’s Instagram do.

Ads will not be shown to minors, and chats with sensitive topics like health, mental health, or politics will not display ads, according to the blog post. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions will not show ads.

OAI Ad Blog Inline-AdMock1 16x9 — An example of how a sponsored ad might appear in ChatGPT (OpenAI)

OpenAI has a lot riding on rolling out a responsible approach to ads, as it seeks to shore up its revenues to keep up with its ambitious growth. Turning ads on for its hundreds of millions of free users would certainly generate some serious additional revenue, which it needs to fulfill its $1 trillion worth of deals.

But we know that users share some pretty sensitive, personal information in their chats, and the company needs to establish trust with its users. Pressure to monetize chats at the expense of user trust could send users to competing chat platforms.

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Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5