Editor's Note: This article about OpenAI's announcement of its advertising model for ads on ChatGPT was written by ChatGPT using the prompt: "Can you write a breaking news story about OpenAI's ChatGPT advertising announcement explaining it to the readers of MediaPost, a trade publication for advertisers and media planning and buying pros who likely are interested in advertising on ChatGPT?"

OpenAI has formally confirmed what many marketers have been anticipating for months: advertising is coming to ChatGPT.

In a policy announcement published today, OpenAI said it will begin testing ads in the U.S. “in the coming weeks” within ChatGPT’s free and newly expanded $8-per-month “Go” tier, while keeping Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions ad-free.

The move marks the first time the world’s most widely used generative AI assistant will open itself to paid brand messages — and it does so with a framework clearly designed to reassure users and advertisers that ChatGPT won’t become a pay-to-play answer engine.

Ads Below The Answer — Not Inside It

For advertisers, the most important structural detail is this: ads will not influence ChatGPT’s responses.

Instead, OpenAI plans to test clearly labeled sponsored placements at the bottom of responses, appearing only when there is a “relevant sponsored product or service based on the current conversation.”

In other words, the model’s answer comes first. The ad follows.

That puts ChatGPT’s early ad architecture closer to search results with sponsored listings than to social feeds or native content — a design choice that may make the inventory instantly legible to performance marketers, but also sets firm limits on how aggressively ads can be woven into the experience.

OpenAI says ads will be visually separated, labeled as sponsored, and accompanied by controls that allow users to learn why they’re seeing an ad or dismiss it altogether.

No Data Sales, No Answer Bias, No Engagement Optimization

OpenAI laid out five principles guiding its ad approach, several of which directly address long-standing advertiser concerns about AI trust and brand safety:

• Ads do not affect answers. ChatGPT responses are optimized for usefulness, not advertiser demand.

• Conversation data will not be sold to advertisers.

• Personalization is optional, and users can turn it off or clear ad-related data at any time.

• No optimization for time spent, a notable departure from most ad-supported platforms.

• A permanent ad-free option via paid subscriptions.

For marketers accustomed to algorithmic opacity, OpenAI is clearly signaling that it wants ChatGPT ads perceived as utility-based discovery, not persuasion layered into cognition.

Guardrails: No Politics, No Health, No Minors

The initial ad tests will exclude sensitive categories entirely.

OpenAI says ads will not appear near conversations involving health, mental health, or politics, and will not be shown to users who self-identify — or are predicted — to be under 18.

That may limit early scale, but it also positions ChatGPT as one of the most conservative ad environments in digital media, at least at launch.

Conversational Commerce Is The Long-Term Play

While the first formats resemble sponsored listings, OpenAI is explicit that this is just the starting point.

The company envisions interactive ads that users can converse with, asking follow-up questions directly inside ChatGPT to evaluate products, services, or travel options.

For brands, that opens the door to something closer to guided decision-making than impression-based advertising — particularly powerful for categories like travel, home services, education, software, and complex retail purchases.

OpenAI also frames ChatGPT ads as a potential equalizer for small businesses and emerging brands, arguing that AI-driven experiences can reduce creative and production barriers that traditionally favor large advertisers.

What This Means For Advertisers

ChatGPT advertising will not look like social, display, or CTV — and that’s the point.

Instead, it introduces a new category of media: intent-rich, conversation-triggered discovery, where relevance is contextual, not behavioral, and where ads appear only after value is delivered.

The early signal from OpenAI is clear:
This won’t be a volume-driven ad marketplace — but for brands comfortable operating inside guardrails, it could become one of the highest-trust environments in digital media.

Testing begins in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Marketers are officially on notice: the AI assistant era is becoming a media channel.