The number of businesses advertising on ChatGPT roughly tripled to 60,000 between late August and the start of October, by New Street Research’s count, as OpenAI cut prices and expanded its ad sales team, according to Alix Coutures at The Information. One agency founder said his business software clients pay about $5 per ChatGPT click, against $30 to $50 per click on Google. Close to half of OpenAI’s roughly 140 ad employees were hired in the third quarter, more of them from Meta than anywhere else, and ad chief Dave Dugan has reorganized sales into industry teams the way Meta and Google do. Ad revenue reached a $1 billion annualized pace in late August, which still leaves OpenAI likely to miss the $2.4 billion it projected to investors for 2026.
