OpenAI disabled some of the app’s promotional messages on ChatGPT after users complained that the chatbot was serving them ads. IN entry on XOpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen said the company is working to improve the experience after showing ChatGPT users in the app messages promoting companies like Peloton and Target, and that “suggestions like these” have now been disabled.
“I agree that anything that resembles advertising should be handled with caution, and we failed,” Chen said. “We’re also looking at better controls so you can reduce this or turn it off if you don’t find it helpful.”
Withdrawal occurs later ChatGPT users — including some who subscribe to paid chatbots Professional AND Besides, plans — shared screenshots of promotional messages that appeared under unrelated chats encouraging them to “find fitness classes” and “shop for home and groceries” after talking to the app about xAI and BitLocker. These promotional messages connected users to Peloton and Target apps, which are integrated directly with ChatGPT.
This was announced by an anonymous company spokesman TechCrunch last week that the news was part of OpenAI’s testing of app hosting on ChatGPT, pointing out plans announced in October to “suggest apps when they’re relevant to the conversation.” In response to one complaint about X, OpenAI data engineer Daniel McAuley stated that promotional messages are not advertisements because they “have no financial element,” but conceded that “the lack of relevancy makes it a bad/confusing experience.” In another message, McAuley stated that these were intended to raise organic discovery of partner apps within ChatGPT, which in turn encourages users to continue using the chatbot rather than switching to another app.
We’ve reached out to OpenAI to confirm whether it is removing all or just some app suggestions from ChatGPT.
Concerns about adding advertising to ChatGPT are understandable given the pressure OpenAI is under to deliver profits. The company reportedly had annual revenue of $12 billion this summer, but is expected to burn through $115 billion by 2029, and has pledged to spend more than $1 trillion to pursue its goal of building superintelligent artificial intelligence. Most of OpenAI’s revenue currently comes from API licensing and user subscriptions, but according to a Financial Times. October found that only 5 percent of ChatGPT’s 800 million users actually pay for the service.
In addition to the highly advertising-like appearance of these app promotions, their lack of relevance to the ChatGPT conversations in which they appeared led to frustration among users that OpenAI had finally introduced advertising to the service. Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley reacted to reactioninsisting that “no live ad testing is performed on the site” and that “any screenshots you have seen are either not real ads or are not real ads.” Turley does not specify which of the ChatGPT promotional messages shared online are imitation.