OpenAI said on Thursday that the advertising pilot for its ChatGPT chatbot in the United States has already exceeded a $100 million annualized revenue pace just six weeks after it began, signaling strong early demand for the company’s nascent ad business.
The rollout, first announced by the Sam Altman-led company in January, placed ads before some U.S. users of the free tier and the lower-priced Go plan as a way to generate revenue to help cover development costs. OpenAI emphasized that the advertisements are distinct from the answers ChatGPT provides and do not influence the chatbot’s generated outputs, and that user conversations are not shared with marketers.
According to a company spokesperson, roughly 85% of ChatGPT users are currently eligible to receive ads, although fewer than 20% of users are shown ads on a given day. That gap leaves "considerable room to grow ad monetization within the existing user pool," the spokesperson said, pointing to potential upside even before geographic expansion.
OpenAI reported "no impact on consumer trust metrics, low dismissal rates of ads, and ongoing improvements in the relevance of ads as we learn from feedback," and said the test will broaden to additional countries in the coming weeks, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The company now counts more than 600 advertisers in the pilot, and said nearly 80% of small- and medium-sized businesses have indicated interest in advertising on ChatGPT. To make it easier for advertisers to participate, OpenAI plans to introduce self-serve advertiser tools in April.
Earlier this week the company named David Dugan, a former Meta advertising executive, to run its global advertising solutions team.
Analysts have noted that advertising could unlock a substantial revenue stream from the millions of ChatGPT users, though they also warned that the shift toward advertising could frustrate some customers and potentially harm trust in the product.
Context and mechanics of the ad test
- Ads are being tested on the free tier and the Go plan and are separate from ChatGPT’s answer generation.
- OpenAI says it does not share user conversations with advertisers and that ads do not influence outputs.
- Self-serve tools for advertisers are scheduled to roll out in April to broaden access.
Outlook from the company
OpenAI described early performance metrics as encouraging: strong advertiser uptake, low rates of ad dismissal by users, and improvements in ad relevance driven by feedback. The company intends to expand the test internationally and to scale access for advertisers with a self-serve platform.