ChatGPT users will soon be hit with targeted ads

Some ongoing conversation — both within and outside the tech community — was about the how and when of OpenAI, which is now valued at $500 billionwill make money. Well, there is one surefire way to do this, and that is advertising. That appears to be the AI ​​giant’s near-future plan, which this week announced that a confined number of ads will be targeted at certain ChatGPT users.

IN blog post published Friday, OpenAI said it will begin testing ads in the U.S. on both its free and Go versions. (Go accounts, which cost $8 a month, were introduced worldwide on Friday). The company pitches this as a way to keep access free while generating revenue from people who aren’t ready to purchase a paid subscription. For now, the company’s more exorbitant paid tiers – Pro, Plus, Business and Enterprise – won’t show any ads.

The ads will appear at the bottom of the user’s conversation and will be targeted to the topic of the discussion. Users will have some control over this situation as they will be able to dismiss ads, see explanations of why specific ads are showing, and turn off personalization, which should defeat the targeted nature of the ads. The company also pledged not to show ads to users it believes are under 18 years of age.

OpenAI claims that ChatGPT will maintain “response agnosticity”, meaning that despite the inclusion of ads, those ads will not influence the responses the chatbot provides to users. The company also promised not to sell user data to advertisers.

This strategy can pay off in two ways. For users of the Free and Go tiers, the company clearly generates significant advertising revenue. At the same time, there will undoubtedly be users who appreciate the app but don’t appreciate the ads, which could result in an augment in subscriptions to the platform’s more exorbitant accounts.

OpenAI also wants everyone to know that it only puts ads on its chatbot to assist the world. In its Friday blog post, the company promised that “interest in advertising always supports” its mission: that AGI “benefits all of humanity.”