According to them, OpenAI is playing with advertising Financial Times.. Chief financial officer Sarah Friar told the newspaper she is considering an advertising business model, but plans to “rethink” when and where ads are shown. However, in a subsequent statement, she stressed that she had “no active plans to continue advertising activities.” However, it seems clear that the idea is on the table. (The FT report highlighted the recent hiring of a high-profile advertising executive: Shivakumar Venkataraman, a former Google employee).
The creator of ChatGPT has so far relied on subscriptions to support the development of its generative AI tools. However, the cost of producing and maintaining these models is staggeringly high, and investors may only be willing to throw so many billions into the fire.
Still, the move seems uncomfortable for OpenAI founder Sam Altman. In recent fireside chat at Harvard Business School was asked if it could operate ads to expand access options, and told delegates that would be “a last resort… I’m not saying OpenAI would never consider ads, but I don’t like them in general and I think ads-plus-AI is extremely disturbing to me.