ChatGPT's free ride is ending: Here's what OpenAI plans for advertising on the chatbot

It's the latest effort by the San Francisco-based company to make money from ChatGPT's more than 800 million users, most of whom get it for free.

Though valued at $500 billion, the startup loses more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit.

“Most importantly: ads will not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you,” said Fidji Simo, the company’s CEO of applications, in a social media post Friday.

OpenAI said the digital ads will appear at the bottom of ChatGPT's answers “when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation.”

The ads “will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer,” the company said.

Originally founded just over a decade ago as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build better-than-human AI, OpenAI last year reorganized its ownership structure and converted its business into a public benefit corporation. It said Friday that its pursuit of advertising will be “always in support” of its original mission to ensure its AI technology “benefits all of humanity.”

But introducing personalized ads starts OpenAI “down a risky path” previously tread by social media companies, said Miranda Bogen of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

“People are using chatbots for all sorts of reasons, including as companions and advisors," said Bogen, director of CDT’s AI Governance Lab. “There’s a lot at stake when that tool tries to exploit users’ trust to hawk advertisers’ goods.”