Word on the street is that OpenAI, the AI darling initially founded as a not-for-profit, is gearing up to go full commercial.

In the next step toward big money making, rumours suggest that OpenAI is going to start selling ads on the AI tool many of us are already using to replace Google, ChatGPT.

With more than 600 million users and a mindboggling 1.2 billion queries every day, ad revenue would amount to a significant sum, supporting the organisation to cover rising costs and new product ambitions.

Miraculously, OpenAI has been able to operate for almost a decade through investor funding and premium subscriptions. But as a result of its wild success, the demand for more inevitably requires a bigger budget with which to deliver on that.

While it’s unconfirmed, and Founder Sam Altman has talked about ads as a “last resort,” OpenAI’s CFO, Sarah Friar, told the Financial Times that they are exploring placing ads in ChatGPT’s user interface. Prefacing that it’s just “thoughtful” consideration.

So, nothing is confirmed, and the company has made no announcements. But, reading the tea leaves and considering its $5 billion loss in 2024, all signs point to further commercialisation. And there’s no more lucrative model than advertising.

Bummer or big opportunity

Should this prediction come to fruition, consumers will undoubtedly not be pleased. It sounds like even Sam Altman himself will not be pleased.

Of course, as consumers, we get used to ads and accept them as part of the transaction when we enjoy free services. But ads inside your chats on ChatGPT seem kind of invasive. Google and Meta ads take up some visual space, but ads in-chat would presumably interrupt your conversation.

There’s a pro and a con here.

We’ve seen example scenarios positively positioned online, where you can imagine a user asking ChatGPT for a pizza recipe and ChatGPT giving the recipe along with an ad for cooking lessons or pizza delivery.

Marketers may say, Hell, yes. Here we have contextual, super-personalised marketing at its most optimal. But it’s quite easy to imagine consumers feeling differently: I just asked for a recipe, not a product or service.

An outside-of-the-chat-experience possibility could be sponsored sessions. Think of how YouTube shows an ad before starting the video you want to watch, or how mobile apps have an ad pop up before or after a game. Ads could just be the admission to then go on to your chat experience. They could also be presented as a ticket to give users access to premium features.

The pro is that, however it looks, the nature of ChatGPT is that it actually understands what its user wants. It can gauge the intent behind the query, making its responses (and presumably the ads it offers) more relevant and correct in context than we see through the current major advertising platforms.

Given that Altman is so icked by the idea of advertising, one would imagine OpenAI foresees its users’ likely resentment toward traditional ad models. Its best and brightest are no doubt working on fresh new ways to bring this revenue generator into action without the friction.

What’s better than ultra-relevant ads?

Organic relevance. It’s as true on Google as it will be on ChatGPT; being referenced organically in a query is far more powerful than popping up uninvited. Ads have their place and value, but being presented as “the example” holds a lot more weight on ChatGPT than it does even to be the organic winner on a Google search.

Unlike Google, where ranking is driven by a mix of keywords, backlinks, and page performance, ChatGPT’s “organic winners” are chosen by interpreting the intent behind a query.

To get referenced, you have to invest in your online reputation, making sure your brand is part of the knowledge base ChatGPT trusts and draws from. Similar to traditional SEO, AI favours content that’s authoritative, up to date, and widely cited. It looks for clear, in‑depth explanations, structured data that it can easily parse, and credible links from other reputable sites. Things you should already be doing.

In practice, the brands most likely to appear as “the example” are those that have invested in building a strong online footprint. That means publishing well‑researched content, answering high‑intent questions in plain language, and keeping information fresh.

If you want to win the organic game (which you should), we wrote a whole guide on what it takes to rank on AI searches.

Who knows what’s next

For OpenAI ads, if they do arrive, there is a great opportunity to get the greatest bang for your advertising buck. Theoretically, given it’s AI, there shouldn’t be the same testing and tweaking required to master the bidding process on most advertising platforms. The most relevant ad should win. Or maybe it will be something entirely different.

What we do know is that The Lead Agency is watching all of these changes closely, planning ahead, trying to predict the future and strategising so that we’re ready for when it comes.

If you want forward-thinking B2B digital marketing, contact our team.