The decision is now official: ChatGPT will start showing adsOpenAI has confirmed that its popular AI assistant will introduce advertising for some users, a move aimed at balancing the books after years of strong growth and ever-increasing costs.
This change will first occur in United States and for adult users The service is currently available through the free plan and ChatGPT Go, and will later be rolled out to the rest of the world, including Europe and Spain. The company emphasizes that the chatbot's responses will remain independent and that advertising will come with a series of limits and privacy safeguards.
How and to whom will ads be shown on ChatGPT
OpenAI has explained that the first phase of ad testing It will be rolled out in the coming weeks to a portion of users in the United States. The advertising will appear to two very specific groups: those who use ChatGPT for free and those who are subscribed to ChatGPT Go, the most economical option.
The ads will be displayed at the end of the chatbot's responsesThese ads are always separated into specific boxes and clearly labeled as sponsored content. The idea is that if a user, for example, asks for travel suggestions to New York, they might see an ad for a hotel or travel service related to that search after completing their response.
The company emphasizes that these commercial spaces They will not be mixed with the generated text. by AI nor will they be integrated within the assistant's recommendationsThere will be no "sponsored" responses or changes to the content based on the advertising campaign, according to their spokespeople.
In this initial phase, the ads will be displayed only for people over 18 years of ageThis applies whether they indicated their age during registration or if an OpenAI age prediction system concludes they are adults. Furthermore, conversations about health topicsmental health or politics, where the company believes advertising has no place.
Once this initial experience is established in the United States, OpenAI's intention is expand advertising to other marketsSpain and the rest of the European countries will gradually enter the plan, in parallel with the commercial expansion of ChatGPT Go and at the pace set by the regulator in matters of privacy and digital advertising.
Which ChatGPT plans will have ads and which won't?
One of the aspects that has generated the most controversy is that Not even all paid plans will be ad-freeOpenAI has decided that ChatGPT Go, its cheapest subscription, will also display advertising even though users pay a monthly fee.
Currently, the platform offers several levels of access: the free versionthe economic plan ChatGPT Go (8 dollars in the United States and 9,99 euros per month in Spain), and higher payment options, ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and EnterpriseOnly these last ones will remain completely ad-free.
ChatGPT Go was born as an intermediate option: it allows send many more messages and generate more images The free version provides expanded access to recent models such as the GPT-5 or GPT-5.2 InstantIt extends memory and improves the context window of conversations. However, OpenAI has made it clear that, despite these advantages, It will still be a plan with advertising..
Users who do not want to see ads under any circumstances should opt for Plus, Pro, Business or Enterprisewith significantly higher monthly fees. In Europe, for example, ChatGPT Plus costs around 23 euros per month, while Pro reaches 229 euros, prices that clearly highlight the gap between the budget-friendly and "premium" options.
This approach outlines a hybrid model very similar to that of other digital platforms: one free level and one cheap level, partially funded by advertising, compared to more expensive subscriptions that guarantee an uninterrupted business experience geared towards intensive businesses or professionals.
Privacy, data and user control
The arrival of advertisements has reopened the debate about the privacy of conversations in ChatGPT. OpenAI assures that it will not sell data or give access to user chats to brands that advertise within the assistant.
According to the company, advertisers will only see aggregated performance metricssuch as how many times an ad has been shown in the chatbot or what percentage of users have clicked on it. They will not be able to access individualized information such as age, exact location, detailed interests, or the content of the conversations that generated that ad.
To decide which ads are shown to each person, OpenAI will combine the topic of conversation with certain personalization data, but he emphasized that users will be able to disable the use of your data for advertising purposes without losing other assistant customization features.
In practice, this means there will be an option to Turn off ad personalization and another to delete the data used in that part of the service whenever the user decides. The company promises that chats with ChatGPT will remain private from advertisers, and that they will not be used directly to target campaigns.
It's worth remembering that the assistant already handles a large amount of personal information: it can remember tastes, dietary restrictions, hobbies, or other details to better tailor its responses, and in recent months it has expanded its memory capabilities to take past conversations into account. The challenge for OpenAI will be to demonstrate that this data ecosystem does not inappropriately overlap with its new advertising business line, especially under European regulatory scrutiny.
What kind of ads will we see and how will they be integrated into the chat?
OpenAI insists it wants to move away from the model of intrusive banners or pop-up windows And that advertising on ChatGPT will be “useful” and “conversational.” At least initially, it will focus on simple formats that are clearly differentiated from the chatbot's responses.
In the first phase, the ads will appear only at the end of the main answerIn a separate block, the user can tap to see why they are seeing that ad, dismiss the recommendation, or send feedback about the relevance of what they are being shown.
Although the company repeats that these ads will not influence the answersThere is an important contextual component: the topics of conversation will serve to show products or services potentially linked to what the person is asking, even with integrated purchase options (Shop without leaving the chat). Travel, courses, digital tools or local services are some of the examples that the firm itself has put on the table.
In the medium term, OpenAI plans to go a step further with what it calls more engaging advertising experiences. interactiveThe idea is that the user can “talk to the ad”That is, asking questions directly about a sponsored product or service within the chat itself before making a purchase decision.
This would transform advertising from a mere static link into a kind of integrated mini business conversation in the flow of the conversation. For now, it's an exploratory approach, but it fits with the logic of a conversational interface where the user is already used to asking and re-asking everything.
The economic context: cost pressures and the search for revenue
The introduction of ads on ChatGPT cannot be separated from the financial context that OpenAI is currently experiencing. The company has become one of the world's leading names in the field. consumer generative AIwith over 800 million weekly active users, most of them on the free version.
Maintaining that infrastructure has an astronomical cost: data centers, specialized chips and energy consumption which, according to figures cited by various media outlets, amounts to tens of billions of dollars in the medium term. The firm has raised some $64.000 billion from investors, but is still in a phase where the business model It is being finalized.
Until now, the main source of income had been subscriptions and services for businesses.
In this context, advertising is presented as a almost inevitable stepThe history of other large technology companies shows similar patterns: first, a huge user base is built with a free or very cheap service, and then commercial formulas such as ads or premium plans without advertising are introduced.
The peculiarity in this case is that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, had stated on several occasions that he viewed the ads as a "last resource" And that combining advertising and AI could be especially delicate due to the risk of eroding trust in the responses. The shift in strategy reflects the weight that data now carries compared to initial reservations.
Impact for users in Spain and Europe
Although testing begins in the United States, OpenAI itself has hinted that Global expansion is only a matter of timeEurope and Spain are on the roadmap, but the company will have to operate in a particularly strict regulatory environment.
In the European market, the use of personal data for advertising is heavily conditioned by the GDPR and the new rules on digital servicesIf OpenAI wants to extend to the EU the model it is testing in the United States, it must offer clear information, simple tools to disable personalization, and ensure that conversations are not used in a way that is inconsistent with what has been declared.
For users in Spain, the scenario is similar to that in the United States: ads in the free version and in ChatGPT Go, probably with rates in euros and conditions adapted to local regulations, and an ad-free experience for those who subscribe to higher-end plans.
The company has already confirmed reference prices for the Spanish market, with ChatGPT Go at 9,99 euros per month And Plus costs around 23 euros. Everything suggests that, once advertising is permanently implemented, that will be the economic barrier for those who don't want to see ads on a daily basis.
In parallel, this evolution also intersects with the decisions of other players in the technology sector. Some manufacturers, such as Apple They have chosen to integrate external models into their systems (for example, ChatGPT or Gemini) under their own privacy rules, and this intermediation could serve as a filter to prevent OpenAI advertising from reaching users in certain usage contexts.
Pending the final details of the expansion in Europe, what seems clear is that The ChatGPT experience in Spain will change over time.especially for those who use the free plan daily or are considering the cheaper subscription as a stable alternative.
OpenAI's shift towards a model in which Advertising is combined with subscriptions This marks a turning point in ChatGPT's history. The assistant that popularized generative AI is beginning to resemble, in its economic logic, other major internet platforms: broad access, tiered payment options, and advertising as a key element to sustain a massive product. Now the question is to what extent this balance between revenue, privacy, and trust will convince users, both in the United States and in Spain and the rest of Europe.
