ChatGPT is adding new ads

OpenAI confirmed today that its ChatGPT app will be adding more space for ads starting with a test later this month.

Announced today, OpenAI will be adding a “new visual ad format” to the ChatGPT app that shows when prompts are processing. Specifically, these will start showing during image generation.

OpenAI explains:

Our new visual ad format helps people imagine how products and services could fit into their lives. Through images showing product inspiration, product usage, or the experiences they make possible, people can discover a new brand, understand what makes an offering distinctive, and decide what to buy. For advertisers, this creates new opportunities to tell their story through images.

Initially, we’ll test this new ad format during image generation in ChatGPT. Ads will be clearly labeled, and remain separate from the image being created. As with our other ad formats, advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.

Previously, OpenAI tested ads that would show up at the bottom of answers with advertisements related to that prompt. An example showed a grocery delivery ad below a recipe response.

As for when you might start seeing these new ads in ChatGPT, OpenAI says it will be testing the format in its app for users in the US starting “later this month,” but a broad rollout isn’t confirmed yet.

OpenAI’s post touts that early findings with its ChatGPT ads have found lower cost per acquisition rates and that businesses are finding higher rates of new customers via the ads.

More on AI:

• Google announces Gemini 4 Argon as its new frontier model
• OpenAI launches Dots, new ‘always-on agents’ you can assign tasks to
• Claude Opus 5.5 and OpenAI GPT-6 Sol & Luna both launch today with lower costs

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