AI Ads Are Coming to Chatgpt

11/7/2025

Yes, Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT — but Not the Kind You’re Used To

But before you picture banner ads or sponsored links, it’s worth understanding what Altman actually said—because his vision looks very different from Google’s.

In a recent episode of Conversations with Tyler, Altman explained that while ChatGPT will “try ads at some point,” he still has “no idea” what they’ll look like. More importantly, he made it clear that advertising isn’t OpenAI’s biggest revenue opportunity.

“There are kinds of ads that I think would be really bad,” he said. “There are kinds of ads that I think would be very good—or pretty good—to do. I expect it’s something we’ll try at some point.”

Altman’s Critique of Google’s Ad Model

Altman didn’t hold back when comparing ChatGPT’s future to Google’s current system:

“Ads on a Google search are dependent on Google doing badly,” he said,

“If it was giving you the best answer, there’d be no reason ever to buy an ad above it.”

His point is simple: Google makes money when search results fall short.
If users found exactly what they needed in the top organic result, there’d be no need to click on ads.

By contrast, Altman says ChatGPT should earn revenue in a way that aligns with users, not advertisers.

“If ChatGPT were accepting payment to put a worse hotel above a better hotel, that’s probably catastrophic for your relationship with ChatGPT.”

How Altman would do ChatGPT Ads

Altman hasn’t settled on a model—but he offered one possible scenario. Imagine ChatGPT recommending a hotel, restaurant, or product because it believes it’s the best option. If a user books or buys directly through that recommendation, OpenAI might take a small, transparent commission.

“If ChatGPT shows you its guess—the best hotel, whatever that is—and then if you book it with one click, takes the same cut that it would take from any other hotel, and there’s nothing that influenced it … I think that’s probably OK.”

In other words, ads might eventually blend into AI-assisted commerce, where revenue comes from genuine user actions—not from paying to appear higher in results.

Why Does This Mean for Marketers?

Altman’s comments hint at a seismic shift in how digital discovery could work. Instead of scrolling through pages of links, users might ask a question, get one confident answer, and act on it—all inside a single chat, because TRUST has been established.

For marketers, that means the future of visibility won’t be about keywords or bids. It’ll be about trust, data quality, and AI relevance.