ChatGPT With Ads? OpenAI Reportedly Looking for Monetisation Chief to Drive Revenue

OpenAI is reportedly paving the path to bring ads on ChatGPT. The San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm is looking to hire an executive who will head the company's monetisation efforts across all verticals, according to a report. Among other responsibilities, this individual will reportedly also be tasked with bringing ads to ChatGPT and its various interfaces. The executive is also said to focus on subscriptions and other revenue sources of the company. Not a lot of details about the ad integration are known at the moment.

OpenAI Reportedly Plans to Bring Ads to ChatGPT

According to a Sources report, OpenAI's CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, is looking for a new hire who can head the company's monetisation division. Simo has reportedly met and interviewed several candidates for the position. The former head of the Facebook app is said to have also talked to some former colleagues for the role. It is unclear whether the firm has shortlisted any candidate.

It is said that the selected candidate will become the company's head of monetisation and oversee different revenue generation efforts, which are not partnership or direct sales-driven. This would reportedly include subscriptions, application programming interfaces (APIs), new monetisation channels, as well as ad integration.

The report claims that this new hire would directly report to Simo, instead of the company CEO, Sam Altman. Simo currently heads multiple divisions, including ChatGPT, APIs, partnerships with different companies, as well as new initiatives. Altman is said to oversee the research, infrastructure, consumer hardware, and safety teams.

This is not the first time rumours about ads on ChatGPT have surfaced online. Last year, Sarah Frias, Chief Financial Officer at OpenAI, reportedly said in an interview that the company was considering creating an ad-based revenue model. However, the executive had also added that there were no active plans to pursue it. This might change if OpenAI hires someone to head its monetisation division.

Notably, no other information about ads on ChatGPT is known. It is difficult to say whether the company will implement banner ads or in any other format. Additionally, it is also not known whether these ads will be shown to the free tier or even the paid subscribers.

Some AI players have already leaned towards advertisements, however. For instance, Google has integrated ads in its AI Overviews, and Perplexity shows ads in certain search queries. In both cases, the ads are labelled.