ChatGPT ads debut, but turning them off comes at a price

Well, it had to happen eventually — ChatGPT is now showing ads.

“Our goal is for ads to support broader access to more powerful ChatGPT features while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT for important and personal tasks,” the company said.

Only the Free and Go tiers of ChatGPT will see ads, OpenAI said. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads. Ads will not influence the answers ChatGPT provides, and conversations won’t be disclosed to advertisers. When ads do appear, OpenAI says they’ll be clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from organic answers.

Still, it’s a bum deal for users who don’t want to see ads, or who rely on ad-blocking software to avoid them. The only way out is upgrading to a paid ChatGPT tier (ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per user per month) or settling for “reduced messages.”

Unfortunately, that’s been left deliberately vague. OpenAI isn’t saying how many messages you’ll get, whether limits will vary by user or time of day, or how many ads you’ll actually see. The company says ads are necessary to keep providing “broader access to AI.”

Just a year ago, OpenAI raised a massive $40 billion funding round. But a paid ad for an enchilada kit is going to keep the lights on? Okay.