OpenAI’s bold vision for ChatGPT seems poised for a familiar business model: ads

But moonshots like this aren’t cheap. OpenAI isn’t printing money, it’s torching it. The company told investors it won’t turn a profit until 2029, and expects to lose $44 billion along the way, per The Wall Street Journal. 

That’s where advertising comes in.

It’s one of the few high-margin businesses that can absorb the cost of scaling both AI and hardware. With ChatGPT, the GPT Store and now a possible always-on device, OpenAI is steadily building an ecosystem full of engagement and signal-rich user behavior — exactly what advertisers want. And while OpenAI hasn’t said much about ads, it’s building the kind of ecosystem that rarely satay ad-free for long.

OpenAI’s addition of Instacart CEO and Meta alum Fidji Simo earlier this month to CEO of applications suggests that ads won’t be a side hustle, but their play. You don’t bring in the architect of Meta’s monetization engine if you’re not planning to build one of your own. Never mind OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s early dismissal of ads as “some number of dimes”. That pocket change is starting to look like the whole business model.

While OpenAI has a subscription business for ChatGPT, only about 4% of the app’s 500 million weekly users pay, according to the company. The other 96% could be hit with ads. They’re not paying with money, but with attention.

“It’s felt inevitable for a while that ads will be in ChatGPT before long and this news will surely speed that process up,” said Matt Garbutt, director of AI and creative, Brave Bison. “OpenAI surely can’t fund millions of units of pocket-sized AI companions on £20 a month subscriptions alone. Investors at a reported $157 billion valuation also want their return, so squeezing in ad revenue once the hardware hits scale seems more than likely.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s a familiar moment for ad execs. Tech loves to treat advertising as just one of many monetization levels — until scarcity forces its hand. If a product reaches the masses, ads aren’t just viable, they’re inevitable. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and many more can attest to that. That’s the logic behind the freemium model: grow fast, give it away then monetize the attention. AI might rewrite the rules of targeting but the fundamentals haven’t changed. Attention is still the asset. Ads are still the engine.

“If ChatGPT does introduce advertising, it raises big questions about user trust and how intent will be surfaced in that environment,” said Daryl Goodman-Gordon, vp of sales, Squared.io. “Right now, the bigger opportunity — and challenge — lies in the platforms where intent is already clear, like Google Ads. In our experience, search remains one of the most under-optimized channels, not due to lack of spend, but because automation hasn’t kept pace with the complexity.”

Still, flipping that switch isn’t simple. 

In fact, it’s a whopper of a task, said Karsten Weide, principal and chief analyst at W Media Research explained. Standing up a global ad business means navigating a maze of regulations, regional user behaviours and wildly different levels of market maturity — each demanding tailored infrastructure strategy and staffing, said Weide. It’s both capital and talent intensive, eepcially for a company already burning through billions of dollars a year. 

But crack that code, and advertisers will come. They;re not afraid of another scaled platform, they’re actively looking for one. As the dominant platforms become more expensive, more regulated, and increasingly opaque, OpenAI represents something rare: a frontier platform with massive reach, fresh context, and untapped inventory. 

Crack that code, and advertisers will come. They’re already actively seeking an already scaled platform. As the dominant platforms become more expensive, more regulated, and increasingly opaque, OpenAI represents something rare: a frontier platform with massive reach, fresh context, and untapped inventory.

“ChatGPT’s power lies in conversation, not clicks,” said Chris Pearce, managing director, search and social specialist Greenpark. “That opens the door to intent-led, integrated, possibly native ad formats that feel more like recommendations than banners. Think sponsored answers that are transparently marked, or priority product placements that align with user context.”

What that opportunity looks like, though, is still taking shape. The breadcrumbs Altman has dropped so far point toward something closer to an affiliate model than traditional advertising. Instead of selling ad slots inside ChatGPT, OpenAI might take a cut when users act on research they’ve done through it and buy or download something. It’s a model that can work but it has its limits. It’s too niche, too transactional, and likely to be as misaligned with user intent. Which is to say, it doesn’t scale like advertising. And it doesn’t unlock the full value of OpenAI’s growing ecosystem. 

“I expect what we will eventually see them rollout is a native integration that is sensitive to not sacrifice user experience and partner quality,” said Matt Barash, chief commercial officer at Nova. “We’ll see new ad formats and new forms of targeting which will enable the complete reinvention of search practices as we have known it.”

For now, though, affiliate appears to be the direction of travel. Just last month, OpenAI ruled out updates allowing users to shop directly from their search results in ChatGPT. Whether its fashion, beauty, homegoods or electronics, the platform now serves up personalized recommendations, visual product details, price comparisons and reviews — with direct links to buy them from merchant sites, all within the ChatGPT interface. As it stands, these product results can’t be bought — they’re earned. 

“ChatGPT stepping into shopping doesn’t just tweak the funnel — it tears it open,” said Nina Goli, head of digital strategy at Modern Citizens. “We’re already in the age of ambient discovery, and now AI is another layer breaking the scroll and re-routing how people find, choose, and buy. It’s not a storefront. It’s a conversation.”

This new frontier is coming into focus fast. OpenAI is moving into commerce, Perplexity has spent months laying the groundwork for an ads business, and Google is aggressively rewiring its entire ad stack around AI. What used to be a series of experiments is quickly becoming the industry’s new default.