ChatGPT Tests Picture Ads for Free and Go Users
OpenAI will start testing picture ads in the US later this month on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans, shown while you wait on an image you asked for.
OpenAI is adding a second kind of ad to ChatGPT. Later this month, a first group of advertisers in the US will start testing picture ads that appear during image generation, the stretch where you've asked ChatGPT for a picture and it's making it.
They're for people on the Free plan and on Go, ChatGPT's cheapest paid plan. Everyone paying for Plus ($20 a month) or anything above it keeps an ad-free ChatGPT.
What the new ads look like
OpenAI says the ads use pictures to show "product inspiration, product usage, or the experiences they make possible."
They'll be "clearly labeled" and kept separate from the image you asked for.
OpenAI hasn't published a screenshot or mock-up. So beyond "during image generation," nobody outside the company knows yet whether the ad fills the wait while your image loads or sits beside it once it's done.
How this differs from ChatGPT's ads so far
ChatGPT started testing ads in the US on February 9 this year, for Free and Go users. Those first ads are small: a company name, a logo and a link in a "sponsored" box below the end of an answer, sometimes as a product card.
The new format is the first one tied to image making instead of to an answer.
It also fits where ChatGPT is heading. It already shows shopping results in the chat, and last week it added a Try On button that puts clothes from those results on a photo of you.
Who sees them
The test is US only. According to OpenAI's help page on ads, ads appear on the Free and Go plans and nowhere else:
- No ads: Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu.
- No ads for teens: any account that ChatGPT believes belongs to someone under 18, based on the age on the account and its own age prediction.
- No ads on sensitive topics: OpenAI says ads won't show next to chats about personal health, mental health or politics, and political ads aren't allowed.
OpenAI also says ads don't change ChatGPT's answers. Its help page says ads "run on separate systems from our chat model" and that advertisers can't shape or rank what ChatGPT tells you. That is OpenAI's own claim, and nobody outside the company has checked it.
Turning them off on the Free plan
Free users can turn ads off, at a cost. In Settings > Ads controls, you can switch to an Ads-Free version of the Free plan.
You'll see no ads, but you get a lower message limit and lose tools like image generation and deep research (ChatGPT's long, sourced research reports). Since the new ads appear during image generation, a Free user who wants to make pictures has to accept the ads, or pay for Plus.
On Go, the help page says the way out is to drop back to Free and go Ads-Free, or upgrade to Plus or Pro.
If you keep ads, the same settings page lets you:
- Turn off ad personalization, so ads are picked only from your current chat.
- Stop your past chats and memory from shaping which ads you see.
- See your ad history and delete your ad data, which takes up to 30 days to clear.
Each ad also has a menu to hide it, report it, or ask ChatGPT about it.
What advertisers get
The same announcement gave advertisers new ways to measure their ads. Brands can add an OpenAI tracking code to their websites, or send OpenAI their sales and sign-up records directly. OpenAI matches those sales to the ads it showed, and a brand now gets credit for a purchase made within a day of someone seeing its ad, even if that person never clicked it.
OpenAI says it shares only "aggregated reporting such as views and clicks" with advertisers, and never your chats, memories, name, email or exact location. OpenAI frames all of this around reach, saying ChatGPT is used by 1.2 billion people every week.
A picture shown while you wait on your own image is much harder to skip than a sponsored link under an answer. You're staring at that part of the screen anyway.
For anyone on Free or Go, the deal now has a clear shape. You can make images with ads, give up image making, or pay for Plus. It looks like OpenAI is testing how many ads people on its cheapest plans will sit through before they pay. We broke down every ChatGPT plan, including the new $500-a-month Pro, in our DevDay explainer.
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