OpenAI has started testing ads in ChatGPT. Its arrival could yield a significant opportunity for marketers, though the user response has been largely negative so far.
The discovery comes from Tibor Blaho. He's the Lead Engineer at AIPRM, a tool that helps people manage prompts in ChatGPT and Claude. Blaho checks for updates and changes to make sure AIPRM remains functional.
In the latest ChatGPT Android beta, Blaho found new strings. They include “ads feature”, “bazaar content”, “search ad”, and “search ads carousel”.
Posting on X, Blaho theorises that these ads might pop up as marketplace-style product cards, in response to certain contextual conversations.
He adds, “Not inside every normal chat.”
This closely mirrors what Ryan Hudson speculated in our recent AMA. With his new venture, ZeroClick, Hudson aims to build the monetisation layer for LLMs via contextual advertising. As for ChatGPT specifically, Hudson commented, “In the short term, I think it'll look like a very compelling low-priced marketplace option.”
Like Hudson, Blaho also points towards the abundance of former-Meta employees at OpenAI as a clue to how its ad approach will manifest.
Google and Microsoft also appear to be guiding OpenAI’s direction in this regard. Both AI Mode and Copilot readily surface sponsored results and ads within their answers.
Blaho adds that this could help monetise the free tier of ChatGPT, in an effort to push more users to its paid tier, and cover the high costs of running the model.
ChatGPT’s colossal compute costs are no secret, and pressure is on for OpenAI to generate more revenue. It seems inevitable that this ad layer will be rolling out sooner rather than later.
Responses to Blaho’s discovery were negative, for the most part.
“They have turned ChatGPT into a complete joke,” wrote one user.
“This is horrible news,” wrote another.
Whether an LLM marketplace will take off with users is to be seen. Most of the social platforms and search engines have managed to make it work, so it seems likely. But, AI systems are a different kind of interface, and users have different relationships with them.
What we can say is that, if it does arrive over the next few weeks, it will be the new frontier of experimentation throughout 2026.
Will affiliates be involved?
In our AMA, Hudson believed that a marketplace model would not accommodate affiliates.
It would be a closed ecosystem, built on paid placements and promotions.
Evidently, it seems that this will be the model arriving at ChatGPT.
But, the platform does extensively reference affiliate content.
Maybe this will change once the ad layer is introduced, or maybe the affiliate industry will need to make certain demands in order to monetise the new landscape. Or, affiliates take the hit and allow the content to be used for free, while figuring out the next step.
For now, these questions remain unanswered.
