Despite all the competition, ChatGPT has maintained its position as the leading AI chatbot on the market. However, ChatGPT maker OpenAI has reportedly been trying to figure out how to make money off the chatbot and while subscriptions are a big part of the plan, the company has also been reported to be working on including ads in the chatbot.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had earlier stated that he isn't totally against having ads and even shared his preference for Instagram style ads that are based on personalization. However, we haven't had an official confirmation from the company on how ads on the chatbot may look.
OpenAI's CEO of Applications Fidji Simo was confronted with the question of having ads in ChatGPT in a recent interaction with WIRED.
While replying to questions on ads, Simo said, “Advertising as a model works really well when you have a lot of commerce intent. We have a ton of it already, people coming and asking for shopping advice. The important thing before we ever consider ads is making sure that our commerce experience is fantastic and that people come and really explore all the products that they want and get great recommendations.”
“Whatever we do is going to have to be extremely respectful of that. That’s why we haven’t announced anything on ads, because if we ever were to do anything, it would have to be a very different model than what has been done before,” she added.
Notably, Simo has a background in developing and scaling advertising businesses, including her time at Meta where she is credited with spearheading the development of mobile ad products and video advertising.
“What I’ve learned from building ad platforms is that the thing people don’t like about ads very often is not the ads themselves, it’s the use of the data behind the ads,” she added.
What could ads on ChatGPT look like?
An earlier report by The Information had revealed that the AI startup is considering showing ads to users based on ChatGPT memory. Notably, the memory feature remembers users to personalize the experience for them.
Meanwhile, another report by Sources revealed that OpenAI is on the lookout for someone who can help the AI startup make billions of dollars in profit from ads. The report noted that Simo has recently been meeting with potential candidates, including some of her former Facebook colleagues, in order to lead a new team that will be tasked with bringing ads to ChatGPT.