Instagram ad for shopping on ChatGPT (Rani Molla/Sherwood News)

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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.

12/8/25 8:54AM

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.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

6/17/26

Companies are getting AI chatbots to smear their competitors

The race to influence AI chatbots is leading to some companies to adopt shady competitive tactics.

Tom Jones6/17/26

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.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

Low-volume production started in April. Now people are noticing them more and more in the wild.

Rani Molla6/15/26

Millie Giles

TAKING ACCOUNTS

6/15/26

Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

The UK government plans to use the same model for the restrictions as Australia — but how successful has that case study been so far?

UK Prime Minister Announces Under-16s Social Media Ban

Jon Keegan6/15/26

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