OpenAI plans to We will begin testing ads within ChatGPT in the coming weeks, marking a major change for one of the world’s most widely used AI products. The company announced Friday that it would roll out an initial ad test in the U.S. before expanding globally.
OpenAI says ads will not affect ChatGPT’s responses, and all ads will appear in separate, clearly labeled boxes directly below the chatbot’s responses. For example, if a user asks ChatGPT for help planning a trip to New York City, the chatbot will provide a standard response and may also show advertisements for hotels in the area.
“People trust ChatGPT for many important personal tasks, so it’s important that we preserve the value of ChatGPT in the first place when implementing advertising,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of OpenAI Applications, in a blog post announcing the advertising trial. “That means you need to believe that ChatGPT responses are driven by what is objectively helpful, not by advertising.”
The first ads will appear to logged-in users in ChatGPT’s free tier and the $8/month Go tier, which begins rolling out to U.S. users on Friday. The Go tier is already available in India, France, and other countries, and allows users to send more messages and generate more images than the free version. OpenAI says users with Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscriptions won’t see ads.
Photo: Provided by OpenAI
OpenAI also outlined principles that will guide its approach to advertising.
The company says it does not sell user data or release ChatGPT conversations to advertisers. This means advertisers won’t be able to see information about your age, location, or interests. This often happens when users are targeted with advertisements across large parts of the Internet.
Instead, an OpenAI spokesperson told WIRED that the company will allow advertisers to aggregate ad performance metrics on ChatGPT, such as the number of times an ad is viewed and the number of users who click on an ad.
OpenAI says it matches conversation topics with related ads to determine which ads to show users. A spokesperson said that some of a user’s personalization data may be used in the process, but users can turn off data used for advertising without turning off ChatGPT’s other personalization features.
The spokesperson did not specify specifically what data OpenAI collects from users to serve relevant ads, but ChatGPT already collects a lot of other data to improve chatbot responses. Users can ask the chatbot to remember personal characteristics such as hobbies, dietary restrictions, and other preferences to tailor responses. OpenAI has also expanded the product’s memory capabilities over the past year, allowing ChatGPT to reference previous chats in responses. “Users can clear data used for advertising at any time,” the company said in a blog post.
