There's been a lot of speculation over the past year that OpenAI would be integrating ads into the ChatGPT experience, but now it might actually be coming true, according to code found in a beta version of ChatGPT's Android app, first discovered by engineer Tibor Blaho.
According to Blaho's post, the 1.2025.329 beta version of ChatGPT's Android app includes mentions of:
- ads feature
- bazaar content
- search ad
- search ads carousel
This version of the app isn't available to the public yet, but is causing speculation that ads may be coming to ChatGPT as early as its next public app release.
Blaho added more context in a follow-up post on X where he wrote:
- OpenAI has been talking for a while about maybe trying ads in a careful way, and these references are the first clear hint that this is now in active development
- My guess is that ads will start around search, shopping and recommendation answers, with “bazaar content” and “search ads carousel” pointing to marketplace style product cards, not inside every normal chat
- This brings ChatGPT closer to what we already see from Google and Microsoft, where Google shows ads inside AI Overviews and AI Mode results and has talked about native ad ideas for Gemini, Copilot already shows ads in chat for shopping and other commercial questions, and Perplexity shows sponsored follow up questions next to the answers
- This could help OpenAI give free users more generous usage and features, while users on paid plans stay ad free, which fits with the high costs of running ChatGPT and the revenue they expect from shopping and ad related features
Sam Altman has had an on-again off-again relationship with the idea of bringing ads to ChatGPT. He's been quoted saying:
- “I kind of hate ads just as an aesthetic choice. I think ads needed to happen on the internet for a bunch of reasons, to get it going, but it’s a momentary industry. The world is richer now. I like that people pay for ChatGPT and know that the answers they’re getting are not influenced by advertisers.”
- “I'm not going to say what we will and will never do because I don't know, but I think there's a lot of interesting ways that are higher on our list of monetization strategies than ads right now.”
- “I'm not totally against it… I like ads on Instagram.”
- “I believe there probably is some cool ad product we can do that is a net win to the user and a sort of positive to our relationship with the user. I don't know what it is yet…”
- “If ChatGPT were accepting payment to put a worse hotel above a better hotel, that's probably catastrophic for your relationship with ChatGPT.”
- “Ads on a Google search are dependent on Google doing badly. If it was giving you the best answer, there'd be no reason ever to buy an ad above it. So you're like – that thing is not quite aligned with me.”
- “I expect it's something we'll try at some point.”
I guess that after writing checks for tens of billions of dollars to pay for GPUs and datacenters, ads start to make a lot more sense.