OpenAI shifts to ads & agents

OpenAI is turning ChatGPT into two products at once: an ad-supported consumer app and a place where autonomous agents keep working after you close the chat. (openai.com; testingcatalog.com) On February 9, 2026, OpenAI said it began testing ads in ChatGPT for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers in the United States. On March 26, it said the pilot was moving into a next phase and would expand to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in the coming weeks. (openai.com) OpenAI says Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education users will not see ads, and that sponsored placements are labeled and kept separate from the main answer. The company also says advertisers do not get users’ conversations and that ad targeting can use the topic of a conversation, past chats, and prior ad interactions. (openai.com) Digiday reported this week that some pilot advertisers can now buy ChatGPT ads on a cost-per-click basis instead of paying only by impression. Search Engine Journal, citing Digiday, said the early ads manager shows bids of $3 to $5 per click, down from launch-era pricing that centered on much higher minimum commitments and $60 cost-per-thousand rates. (searchenginejournal.com) At the same time, OpenAI is testing an Agents area inside ChatGPT under the codename Hermes. TestingCatalog reported on April 21 that the beta would let users build persistent agents with skills, connectors, scheduled tasks, and messaging hooks so they can run continuously instead of waiting for a fresh prompt. (testingcatalog.com) That agent push lines up with OpenAI’s broader platform work. The company’s agent platform pitch says customers can “build every step of agents on one platform,” and its April 16 Codex update added background computer use, browser access, memory, plugins, and automations that can wake up later and continue long-running work. (openai.com; openai.com) Codex is also moving from a developer tool toward an enterprise product. OpenAI said on April 16 that more than 3 million developers were using Codex every week, and reports a few days later said that figure had risen to 4 million weekly users as OpenAI worked with consulting firms including Accenture, Capgemini, and PricewaterhouseCoopers to sell it to businesses. (openai.com; msn.com; msn.com) OpenAI has been staffing for the ad side for months. Search Engine Land reported in September 2025 that the company was hiring a Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer to build campaign management tools, attribution systems, reporting pipelines, and experimentation frameworks for a new ChatGPT growth team. (searchengineland.com) The combined effect is a ChatGPT product that looks less like a single question-and-answer box and more like a bundle of software businesses: search-style ads for free users, subscription tiers for heavier use, and agent tools that can sit inside daily workflows for developers and companies. (openai.com; openai.com; testingcatalog.com) OpenAI’s next test is whether users accept sponsored results inside a product they use for personal and work tasks, while businesses decide whether always-on agents belong inside the same window. The company has already started running both experiments at once. (openai.com; testingcatalog.com)