penAI is finally biting the bullet on digital advertising. On Friday, the company announced that it will begin testing ads in the US for its ChatGPT free tier, offering those users higher usage limits in exchange for seeing ads. It's also expanding ChatGPT Go globally — an $8/month plan with premium features discounted by showing ads. The app’s Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions will remain ad-free.

In a blog post announcing the changes, OpenAI said ads will allow “more people [to] benefit from our tools with fewer usage limits or without having to pay,” aiming to make more advanced AI features more accessible.

• The company noted that ads will be "separate and clearly labeled,” and that OpenAI will never sell user data to advertisers. Users can also turn off personalization and clear the data that’s used for ads at any point.
• OpenAI also stressed that its platform does not "optimize for time spent on ChatGPT.”
• And during testing, OpenAI will not show ads to accounts that indicate that they are under 18 or that it predicts to be under 18. Ads will also not appear surrounding certain topics, including health, mental health or politics.

In a post on X, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, said that ads “will not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.” Simo also provided a preview of what the ads would look like at the bottom of a ChatGPT query — labeled as sponsored and segmented from the organic answer. Some of these ads will be conversational, so you'll be able to ask questions about the information they contain.

In October 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, "I kind of think of ads as like a last resort for us as a business model. I would do it if it meant that was the only way to get everyone in the world access to great services. But if we can find something that doesn't do that, I would prefer it."

This isn’t the first time OpenAI has sought to make some money from consumers. Ahead of the holidays, the company launched a tool called “shopping research” that does the grunt work of online shopping and price comparison for users with simple queries.

And of course, OpenAI isn't the only company toying with ads as part of it’s monitization strategy. AI search engine Perplexity also began experimenting with advertising late last year, starting in the U.S. AdWeek reported last month that Google told advertisers it would bring ads to Gemini in 2026, though the company denied the report. Google’s VP of Global Ads Dan Taylor told Business Insider that there are no plans for ads in the Gemini app, noting that “Search and Gemini are complementary tools with different roles.”

But even if these platforms don’t share user data with advertisers, the decision represents a “risky path,” said Miranda Bogen, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab. “People are using chatbots for all sorts of reasons, including as companions and advisors. There’s a lot at stake when that tool tries to exploit users’ trust to hawk advertisers’ goods.”