Earlier this week, OpenAI announced that it will begin rolling out advertisements within ChatGPT, affecting users on both the free tier and the company’s “Go” subscription plan.
Introduced in January, the Go tier costs $8 per month and provides expanded access to features such as file uploads, image generation, and higher messaging limits compared to the free version.
In a statement released by the company, OpenAI said, “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. When you see an ad, they are always clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer.”
Addressing privacy concerns, the company added, “Ads are designed to respect your privacy. Advertisers do not have access to your chats, chat history, memories, or personal details. Advertisers only receive aggregate information about how their ads perform such as number of views or clicks.”
OpenAI also stated, “We will not show ads in accounts where the user tells us or we predict that they are under 18, and ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health or politics.”
OpenAI has been signaling that advertisements would eventually be introduced. In mid-January, CEO Sam Altman said the company would begin testing ads but emphasized that it would “not accept money to influence the answer” ChatGPT provides to users. “We keep your conversations private from advertisers,” Altman wrote on X.
Free and Go users will also have the option to opt out of ads in exchange for fewer daily messages, the company said.
According to CNBC, more than 800 million people use ChatGPT each week, a scale that helps explain why advertising could become a meaningful revenue stream.
It remains unclear whether ChatGPT’s higher-priced Plus and Pro subscription tiers will continue to operate without advertisements.
For the latest news on everything happening in Chester County and the surrounding area, be sure to follow MyChesCo on Google News and MSN.