OpenAI to test banner ads in ChatGPT as company reports large cash burn

OpenAI will test banner ads in ChatGPT, placing them at the bottom of answers and separated from the conversation history, the company says. The move comes amid intense financial pressure: OpenAI does not expect to be profitable until 2030 and has committed to spend about $1.4 trillion on data centers and chips.

According to financial documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal in November, OpenAI expects to burn through roughly $9 billion this year while generating $13 billion in revenue, and only about 5 percent of ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users pay for subscriptions. The company says the ad placement is intended to avoid sponsored content altering the assistant’s outputs.

Simo wrote in a blog post that ads will not influence ChatGPT’s conversational responses, that OpenAI will not share conversations with advertisers, and that it will not show ads on sensitive topics such as mental health and politics to users it determines to be under 18.

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Tech, Openai, Chatgpt, Banner Ads, Ai Chips, Sam Altman