OpenAI has confirmed that it is testing ads for ChatGPT in the US while also bringing the company’s Go tier subscription to the country. The company will start testing ads for its free and Go tier subscribers.
The San Francisco-based AI startup also stated that ads inside ChatGPT will be “clearly labelled and shown separately from ChatGPT responses” in order to ensure that the boundary between ads and answers by the chatbot are clearly differentiated.
“People trust ChatGPT for many important and personal tasks, so as we introduce ads, it’s crucial we preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable in the first place,” the company said in a blogpost.
The company also stated that ads will not influence the answers ChatGPT gives users, while noting that the chatbot’s responses will continue to be optimised for what’s most helpful to them.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also listed out the principles behind ads in ChatGPT. In a post on X, Altman wrote, “Here are our principles. Most importantly, we will not accept money to influence the answer ChatGPT gives you, and we keep your conversations private from advertisers. It is clear to us that a lot of people want to use a lot of AI and don't want to pay, so we are hopeful a business model like this can work.”
Altman also once again talked about liking the kind of ads shown on Instagram, where he found products that he would otherwise never have seen. He also noted that OpenAI would be aiming to make ads even more useful to users.
OpenAI's ad policies:
The company said in a blogpost that it will keep ChatGPT “private from advertisers” and will “never sell your data to advertisers”.
Users will also have control over how their data is used by OpenAI. The company allows users to turn off personalisation and clear the data used for ads at any point. However, if users don’t want to see ads in ChatGPT entirely, they will have to buy a ChatGPT subscription.
The company also says that it does not optimise for time spent by users in ChatGPT while showing ads.
As for when ads will come to all users, OpenAI says that it is not launching ads widely yet but plans to start testing them for logged-in users in the US in the coming weeks.
“Ads will be clearly labelled and separated from the organic answer. You’ll be able to learn more about why you’re seeing that ad, or dismiss any ad and tell us why. During our test, we will not show ads in accounts where the user tells us or we predict that they are under 18, and ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health or politics,” the company said.