ChatGPT Will Soon Display Ads, New Leak Suggests

OpenAI celebrated ChatGPT's third anniversary over the weekend. The generative AI chatbot went viral in late November 2022, seeing tremendous growth ever since. About 800 million people use ChatGPT, according to recent estimates, and most of them are using the free version. GPT-5 is free for all accounts and offers enough AI features to keep most users happy. Moreover, OpenAI has been improving the free tier in recent years. But those using ChatGPT for free may soon start paying for AI access by seeing ads in the app.

A new discovery in a beta version of the ChatGPT app for Android shows that work on advertising has advanced to a point where a rollout may be inevitable. News about ChatGPT getting ads has been circulating for a while now, with officials acknowledging in the past that ads are under consideration. While OpenAI has never offered a timeline for an ad-based ChatGPT experience, advertising may be a way for OpenAI to increase revenue. According to TestingCatalog, OpenAI has added ad-related code to the Android app (beta version 1.2025.329). The strings mention "ads feature," "bazaar content," "search ad," and "search ads carousel."

TestingCatalog notes that other generative AI services like Google's AI Overviews and Microsoft's Copilot already include advertising. Perplexity also shows ads in answers. With the addition of shopping research features in ChatGPT, ads make even more sense. Also, ChatGPT is expected to introduce third-party apps and agent support, which can also be tied to advertising. Well-known AI enthusiast Tibor Blaho also mentioned the code strings in the Android app that suggest ad features are in testing on the Android app. He also reminds us that OpenAI hired over 600 former Meta employees as of mid-October, a group that makes up about a fifth of its entire workforce. An October report from The Information cited an OpenAI employee who said that ChatGPT could show ads based on its memory, or things it remembers about the user.

OpenAI hasn't confirmed such ad features for ChatGPT, but the company has shown a growing openness to showing ads in the app. The Android app findings do not provide more insight into how advertising will work in ChatGPT or when OpenAI will turn on the switch. But they suggest a rollout is imminent. All of ChatGPT's free features on all platforms will likely include ads. When advertising is ready, OpenAI will probably explain exactly how it works, including what user data will be harvested to deploy ads. Last December, the company held a "12 Days of OpenAI" event. A similar event may follow later this month. Hopefully, the paid tiers will be spared from ads.