AI firms testing monetization and infra

OpenAI is testing how to make money from ChatGPT while Anthropic and Disney build the pipes and controls needed to run artificial intelligence at scale. (thenextweb.com; cnbc.com; businessinsider.com) The ad push started in January, when The Next Web reported that OpenAI planned to test ads for adult users in the United States on ChatGPT’s Free tier and a new $8-a-month Go tier, while excluding Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users. On April 1, the same outlet reported that the pilot had crossed $100 million in annualized revenue with more than 600 advertisers after OpenAI switched on ads on February 9. (thenextweb.com; thenextweb.com) The Next Web also reported that OpenAI moved away from traditional cost-per-thousand-impressions pricing as rates fell, and began favoring cost-per-click ads tied to user actions inside chat. The company is also working with Smartly on interactive ad formats built for conversational prompts rather than search-style keyword auctions. (thenextweb.com; thenextweb.com) OpenAI has also been signing news deals that let it show publisher content in answers. In May 2024, OpenAI and News Corp announced a multi-year partnership that gives OpenAI permission to display content from outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, and The Sun in response to user questions. (openai.com) Anthropic, meanwhile, is hiring a senior manager for data-center site selection and commercial negotiations in Europe, according to a CNBC report published April 23. CNBC said the role can pay as much as £280,000, or about $373,000, and comes as United States hyperscalers’ artificial-intelligence infrastructure spending is projected to top $600 billion in 2026. (cnbc.com) That hiring push follows Anthropic’s April 16 announcement that it had secured London office space for as many as 800 employees as it expands in the United Kingdom and Europe. CNBC said the company is competing with OpenAI, which had already announced its first permanent London office. (cnbc.com) Inside large companies, the race is shifting from whether workers use AI to how managers measure it. Business Insider reported that Disney built an internal “AI Adoption Dashboard” showing employee usage across tools, including token counts, and that one Claude user invoked the chatbot about 460,000 times in a nine-day span. (businessinsider.com) Business Insider had reported in December that Disney employees were already using Microsoft Copilot, Amazon Q Developer, and, through a deal with OpenAI, were set to get enterprise ChatGPT access. The newer dashboard shows the next step: not just handing out tools, but tracking where the heaviest usage sits inside the company. (businessinsider.com; businessinsider.com) Taken together, the three moves point to the same operating problem: chatbots need revenue, data centers, and internal controls at the same time. In April 2026 alone, OpenAI was adding ad formats and pricing tiers, Anthropic was hunting for European compute capacity, and Disney was counting tokens to see who was actually using the systems. (thenextweb.com; thenextweb.com; cnbc.com; businessinsider.com)