OpenAI’s Biggest Challenge: Turning Its A.I. Into a Cash Machine

OpenAI has begun showing ads inside ChatGPT even though its chief executive once called ads a last resort. The company is spending tens of billions of dollars on the computing power needed to build and deploy its models, and it hopes to triple revenue this year while preparing for far greater expenses in the coming years.

Last year it brought in about $13 billion, and it expects to spend roughly $100 billion more over the next four years. About 60 percent of OpenAI’s revenue currently comes from consumer products and 40 percent from business technologies. Of roughly 800 million ChatGPT users, about 6 percent pay for advanced versions, often at about $20 a month.

The new ad effort is meant to monetize the free tier, but the company is still building an ad sales organization and has hired ad veterans, including Fidji Simo, and staff from X and Meta. At the same time OpenAI is pushing harder into enterprise software, aiming for half its revenue to come from businesses by year’s end.

openai, chatgpt, ads, ad sales, revenue, computing power, enterprise software, fidji simo, paid users, meta