OpenAI will begin showing ads to all users of the free and Go versions of ChatGPT in the United States “in the coming weeks,” a company spokesperson told Reuters on March 21. The expansion follows a pilot program that began February 9 and has so far reached approximately 5% of ChatGPT’s mobile user base, according to Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC.
The ad volume has grown rapidly within the pilot: Sensor Tower measured a roughly 600% increase in ads served between March 1 and mid-March.
Pricing and Advertiser Commitments
ChatGPT ads launched at approximately $60 CPM, per CNBC. Brands participating in the pilot committed between $200,000 and $250,000, double the typical budget for an experimental ad format, per CNBC.
Three of the world’s largest ad agency holding companies are in the test: WPP, Omnicom, and Dentsu. Criteo became the first major ad-tech platform to integrate with ChatGPT inventory on March 2, opening programmatic access for approximately 17,000 advertisers, according to WinBuzzer.
Pilot Rollout Slower Than Advertiser Expectations
Multiple ad industry sources told CNBC that the pilot’s conservative rollout is frustrating partners. With pilot commitments due to expire at the end of March, some brands won’t spend their full budgets, and the insight volume is lower than expected. Unspent funds will be returned, but the committed budgets can’t be redeployed within Q1.
OpenAI acknowledged the deliberate pace: “We’re in the early testing phase of ads in ChatGPT, and the goal right now is to learn and refine the experience for consumers before expanding it more broadly.”
Dentsu’s EVP of Paid Search Meredith Spitz told CNBC that “ad delivery is quickly building momentum, with volume increasing week-over-week as the environment scales.”
How the Ads Work
Ads appear below ChatGPT’s answers, not within them, and only when a relevant sponsored product matches the conversation topic. Paid subscribers (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, Education) see no ads. Users under 18 are also exempt.
OpenAI says advertisers receive only aggregate performance data like impressions and clicks, not individual conversation data. The ad system runs on separate infrastructure from the chat model, and advertisers cannot influence ChatGPT’s responses. Ads are excluded from sensitive categories including health, politics, dating, and financial services.
Revenue Projections and Competitive Positioning
Truist analysts called 2026 an “inflection year” for LLM-powered advertising, estimating OpenAI will generate under $1 billion in ad revenue this year, growing to over $30 billion by 2030. The analysts wrote that “within the next several years, we would expect LLM-powered ad channels to become one of the most important pillars of the digital ad industry alongside Search, Social, and Retail Media.”
That projection matters in the context of OpenAI’s finances. WinBuzzer reported a projected $17 billion cash burn for OpenAI in 2026, making advertising revenue a financial necessity rather than an experiment, despite CEO Sam Altman previously calling ads a “last resort.”
Anthropic has publicly positioned Claude as ad-free, running a Super Bowl commercial criticizing OpenAI’s move into advertising. Perplexity removed ads from its platform after testing them in 2024. Google has not announced ad plans for Gemini but has signaled it isn’t ruling them out.
Early Benchmark for AI-Native Ad Pricing
The $60 CPM establishes an early benchmark for AI-native advertising. Whether ChatGPT can sustain that rate at scale depends on whether conversational AI context produces measurably higher-intent ad placements than search or social feeds.
For AI platforms broadly, the implications are direct. Any AI interface that mediates between users and the web sits on a potential advertising surface. OpenAI is the first major player to price it. Whether the market accepts $60 CPM as the floor or pushes it down as competition enters will shape the economics of AI interfaces through 2026 and beyond.