OpenAI has announced plans to begin testing advertisements in its ChatGPT app for free users and the new $8-per-month Go subscription tier in the United States. The company aims to diversify revenue amid significant financial pressures, while ensuring ads do not influence the AI's responses. Higher-paid tiers will remain ad-free.
On January 16, 2026, OpenAI revealed it will start testing banner ads inside the ChatGPT app for logged-in users of the free version and the newly global ChatGPT Go plan. The Go tier, priced at $8 per month and launched initially in India in August 2025, offers 10 times more messages, file uploads, and image creations than the free tier, along with improved memory for conversation details. It is now available in over 170 countries, including the US, but users on Plus ($20/month), Pro ($200/month), Business, or Enterprise plans will not see ads.
The ads, set to appear in the coming weeks, will be placed at the bottom of answers and clearly labeled as sponsored content, separated from the AI's responses. For example, querying places to visit in Mexico might trigger holiday-related ads. OpenAI emphasizes that advertisements will not affect ChatGPT's outputs, which remain based on usefulness to the user. Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, stated in the company's blog post: “Our enterprise and subscription businesses are already strong. We believe in having a diverse revenue model where ads can play a part in making intelligence more accessible to everyone.”
To address privacy concerns, OpenAI will not share individual conversations with advertisers or sell user data. Ads will be avoided on sensitive topics like health, mental health, and politics, and will not be shown to users under 18, whether self-reported or system-detected. Users can disable ad personalization, clear related data, or dismiss ads with feedback. This move reverses earlier reluctance from CEO Sam Altman, who in 2024 called ads a “last resort” and described their combination with AI as “uniquely unsettling.”
The decision stems from OpenAI's financial challenges: it expects to burn through $9 billion in 2026 while generating $13 billion in revenue, with only 5% of its 800 million weekly users subscribing. Profitability is not anticipated until 2030, amid $1.4 trillion commitments to data centers and chips. Tech critic Ed Zitron expressed skepticism, writing on Bluesky: “I am extremely bearish on this ads product. Even if this becomes a good business line, OpenAI’s services cost too much for it to matter!” OpenAI follows trends seen in Google's late-2024 ad tests in AI chatbots and its own April 2025 shopping features in ChatGPT Search.
