OpenAI reports ad revenue
OpenAI says ChatGPT has already generated about $100 million from ads inside the product and that it expects substantially larger ad revenue over time. The claim frames conversational AI as a potential new ad surface where exposure and engagement are measured differently than on search or social. (futurism.com)
OpenAI says ChatGPT ads have already crossed a $100 million annualized revenue run rate less than two months after the company started its United States pilot. (cnbc.com) The pilot began after OpenAI said on January 16, 2026 that it would test ads for logged-in adults in the United States on ChatGPT’s free tier and its $8-a-month ChatGPT Go plan. OpenAI said Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions would stay ad-free. (openai.com) OpenAI said the first ad format appears at the bottom of answers, is clearly labeled, and does not change the answer itself. The company also said users under 18 will not see ads, and ads will not appear near politics, health, or mental health topics. (openai.com) By March 26, OpenAI said it was working with more than 600 advertisers, and a spokesperson told CNBC that less than 20% of eligible free and Go users in the United States were seeing ads on a daily basis. The company said it had seen no impact on privacy-related trust metrics. (cnbc.com) OpenAI has told investors to expect ad revenue of $2.5 billion in 2026 and $100 billion by 2030, according to Axios and Reuters. Reuters said the investor deck also projected $11 billion in 2027, $25 billion in 2028, and $53 billion in 2029. (axios.com) (usnews.com) Those projections assume OpenAI’s products reach 2.75 billion weekly users by 2030. Futurism, citing Axios, said OpenAI had about 900 million weekly users as of February 2026. (futurism.com) The business shift is a break from OpenAI’s earlier posture on advertising, but the company now says ads can help fund wider access to its tools while keeping answers independent from sponsors. In its January post, OpenAI said it does “not optimize for time spent in ChatGPT” and said users can turn off ad personalization. (openai.com) Rivals are using the ad issue against OpenAI. CNBC reported that Anthropic mocked the move in its first Super Bowl campaign, while Futurism said some ChatGPT users threatened to switch to Claude over trust concerns. (cnbc.com) (futurism.com) OpenAI said in March that it was starting to explore additional ad testing in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The next question is whether a chatbot can turn sponsored suggestions into a business as large as search ads without pushing users away. (cnbc.com)
