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.
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.
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.
