At the beginning of this year, OpenAI quietly launched what many called a risky bet: ads directly in ChatGPT for U.S. users on the free tier and the cheaper Go subscription. And now we have the first figures.
In just six weeks, the ad launch surpassed $100 million in revenue. A company spokesperson announced the milestone, which was first reported by The Information.
How do ads in ChatGPT work?
Ads are displayed below the chatbot's response, are clearly labeled, and do not affect the content of the responses in any way. OpenAI strongly emphasizes that user conversations are not shared with advertisers. Ads are not shown to anyone under the age of 18 or alongside sensitive topics such as health or politics. For now, the setup is highly cautious. Although approximately 85% of users may see ads, fewer than 20% encounter them each day. OpenAI is deliberately keeping ads in check and collecting data for now.
"We are in the early testing phase, and the goal is to learn and improve the user experience before expanding the program," a company spokesperson said. And so far, the results speak for themselves: a low ad rejection rate, no negative impact on user trust, and increasing relevance of the content displayed.
More than 600 advertisers are participating in the pilot. What is interesting is who predominates among them: nearly 80% of small and medium-sized businesses have expressed interest in advertising in ChatGPT. This suggests that OpenAI is not relying solely on large corporate budgets. On the other hand, the conditions for joining the pilot are not exactly cheap. The minimum advertiser commitment is $200,000, and the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is around $60. Those are premium terms. Yet companies are signing contracts. Why?
The answer is simple: ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly active users. That is an audience no other AI platform has. And advertisers know it.
Click-through rate lags behind
But it is not all good news. The click-through rate (CTR) of the ad launch stands at 0.91%. Google Search, meanwhile, is around 6.4%. The difference is still enormous, even though the figures may seem small. It shows that ads work differently in a conversational environment than in a search engine. People come to ChatGPT with a specific task; they are looking for an answer, not an offer. Convincing them to click on a banner below the chatbot's response requires a different approach, a different format, and different creative.
Some advertisers have also expressed frustration with the slow pace of the rollout. CNBC reported earlier in March that some of them had been waiting longer than expected for broader access. OpenAI, however, insists that the slow pace is intentional.
When OpenAI announced ad testing in January 2026, rival Anthropic made no secret of its delight. It aimed its first Super Bowl commercial directly at this move, implicitly presenting itself as the "clean" ad-free alternative. The funny thing is that $100 million in six weeks is not a result that is easy to laugh at. OpenAI suddenly has a powerful tool for diversifying its revenue beyond subscriptions and enterprise contracts.
Plans to expand advertising
OpenAI plans to launch self-service advertising tools in April, opening the program to smaller advertisers without multimillion-dollar budgets. Geographically, the program will expand to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The U.S. launch thus serves as a testing ground ahead of a global rollout.
And in terms of staffing? David Dugan, a former Meta executive specializing in advertising, has taken charge of OpenAI's global advertising team. The signal is clear. This is not just an experiment. This is the construction of an advertising infrastructure from the ground up.
Additional sources: reuters.com and mlq.ai
