ChatGPT will start selling ad space next to the images you ask it to make

ChatGPT is about to put advertising inside one of its most used features. OpenAI will test a visual ad format that appears while the chatbot generates an image, so a request for a birthday card or a logo sketch can come back next to a picture paid for by a brand. The company says the ads will be clearly labeled and kept separate from the image being created.

For anyone on the free version, that changes what an AI image tool is. ChatGPT ads have so far sat below text answers, much like a sponsored link on a search page. The new unit uses pictures to show product inspiration, people using a product or the experience it promises, which means the sponsored image and the one you asked for will compete for the same glance.

The test covers the United States only and starts with an initial group of advertisers, and OpenAI has given no timeline for other countries. Ads in ChatGPT run on the Free tier and the $8 Go plan, while Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers do not see them. OpenAI repeats that ads do not change what ChatGPT answers and that it does not sell conversation data to advertisers.

The bigger shift is on the advertiser side. OpenAI is adding connections with Hightouch, Tealium and LiveRamp so brands can send purchase and sign-up data from their own systems back into ChatGPT Ads, and it now works with attribution firms including AppsFlyer, Adjust, Triple Whale and Northbeam. That lets a company check whether someone who saw its ad in ChatGPT later bought something, the same feedback loop that made Google and Meta the biggest ad businesses on the web.

OpenAI is also piloting brand-suitability checks with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, and says those outside firms will not see users’ private conversations. Qualifying advertisers get a Negative Phrases control to keep their ads away from topics they want to avoid.

Several questions remain open. OpenAI has not explained how it decides that an image request is a suitable place for an ad when the only context is a one-line prompt, or whether the generated images themselves are reviewed. Earlier rules kept dating, health, financial services and political advertisers out of ChatGPT, according to the trade site PPC Land, but the company has not said those exclusions apply to the visual format. The early results it shared come from advertisers themselves: WeightWatchers reports paying 15.3% less per acquisition than on paid search, and Portland Leather says 93% of visitors from ChatGPT ads were new to the brand. None of the figures come with spend or sample sizes.

Avoiding the ads has a price too. Under OpenAI’s earlier help documentation, free users who picked an ad-free experience lost access to image creation, PPC Land reported. Now that image generation is itself an ad slot, the free tier’s best-known creative tool and its newest ad space are the same screen.

The scale explains the push. OpenAI says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people every week. Its ad business launched as a US pilot on February 9 and passed a $1 billion annualized run rate by the end of August, according to PPC Land’s tally of company disclosures.

OpenAI announced the visual format on October 5, and testing with the first US advertisers begins later this month. The company has not said when visual ads will reach other markets, or whether it will publish independent audit results before expanding. For free users, the picture you asked for is about to share the screen with one you didn’t.

Tags: OpenAI, chatgpt, privacy, AI image generation, ChatGPT Ads, digital advertising