In partnership with
Happy Sunday everyone!
OpenAI just made a move nobody saw coming (or maybe everyone did).
On January 16, the company announced it's testing ads in ChatGPT. Not just somewhere in the distant future. Starting in a few weeks. In the U.S. For logged-in free users and the new $8-per-month Go tier.
This is the moment OpenAI shifts from "we're building the future" to "we need to pay for it somehow".
📊 The Numbers Behind the Move
Why Now?
OpenAI burns billions annually on infrastructure and data. The company committed to spending $115 billion through 2029 on cloud computing and AI infrastructure.
Meanwhile, 95% of ChatGPT's 800 million weekly active users consume computational resources without generating direct revenue. That math breaks.
The company is targeting $125 billion in total revenue by 2029. Advertising is expected to contribute around $25 billion of that. That's not pocket change. That's one-fifth of the entire business.
When Free Becomes Complicated
ChatGPT's adding ads to the free tier. Your customer data shouldn't be this complicated.
Attio keeps your contact information clean, organized, and under your control. No ads. No surprises. No trying to figure out where your data actually lives.
Built for teams who need their customer relationships working without the friction.
Try Attio here ⤵
Introducing the first AI-native CRM
Connect your email, and you’ll instantly get a CRM with enriched customer insights and a platform that grows with your business.
With AI at the core, Attio lets you:
Prospect and route leads with research agents
Get real-time insights during customer calls
Build powerful automations for your complex workflows
Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.
How It Actually Works
Here's what matters for your experience:
Ads show up at the bottom of responses. Clearly labeled. Separated from the actual answer. They won't influence what ChatGPT tells you.
The company is explicit about this: OpenAI won't show ads for sensitive topics like health, politics, or mental health.
Advertisers don't see your conversations. They don't see your chat history. They see broad contextual signals from your query, not personal data.
You can also disable personalized ads.
Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscribers? No ads. You pay, you don't see them.
The Three-Tier Strategy
- Free: Ads during testing (starting now)
- Go ($8/month): Ads during testing. More features than free
- Plus ($20/month), Pro ($200/month), Business, Enterprise: No ads ever
This creates three economic models from one product.
OpenAI announced plans to test ads in coming weeks starting mid January. But according to reporting, the company is already testing impression-based ads with select advertisers and planning to launch as early as February.
That's fast. The company is charging on a pay-per-impression model rather than pay-per-click. Early advertisers commit under $1 million each right now.
This is the beta phase. Self-serve ad buying comes later.
What This Means for OpenAI's Business
The advertising play changes the equation. For years, OpenAI had only two revenue streams: subscriptions and API calls. Both depend on willingness to pay.
Advertising monetizes the 95% of users who will never pay. It transforms ChatGPT from a tool you use into an advertising platform. Not a search engine where ads fit naturally. An AI that generates answers, with ads below them.
Google generates over $200 billion annually from ads. OpenAI thinks it can build a significant advertising business here.
The company is explicit about one thing: ads won't change your answers. If you see a brand mentioned, it's because it's actually relevant to your question, not because they paid for placement.
That's the tension. Ads only work if they're relevant. Relevance depends on understanding the user. The more OpenAI tracks and personalizes, the more effective ads become. But the more trust erodes.
According to OpenAI
Your conversations stay private. Even though OpenAI will use them to show relevant ads, they're not sold.
Minors don't see ads.
The quality of ChatGPT's answers won't change.
If you don't want personalized ads, you can turn that off.
And if you want ads gone permanently? Pay for Pro or Plus. That's the intended upgrade path.
The Future of Shopping? AI + Actual Humans.
AI has changed how consumers shop, but people still drive decisions. Levanta’s research shows affiliate and creator content continues to influence conversions, plus it now shapes the product recommendations AI delivers. Affiliate marketing isn’t being replaced by AI, it’s being amplified.
This is the moment the free AI era officially ends.
Every company copying OpenAI's free-to-paid model was always going to hit this wall. You can't serve billions of users with cutting-edge compute without revenue.
Google has search. Meta has engagement. OpenAI has conversations that cost real money to generate.
Advertising is the fastest path to scale revenue without raising prices on existing users. And it works for companies with massive, captive audiences.
Stay sharp,
Better Every Day
Will you upgrade to avoid ads or stick with free? The economics of that decision will shape how this plays out.
