OpenAI launches visual ads that appear alongside image generation results

ChatGPT is getting more ads. Specifically, OpenAI is adding visual display ads to its ad product line-up so that ads will appear alongside images that users ask ChatGPT to generate. In addition, the company is expanding its ad measurement tools and partnerships, and developing new ways to determine brand suitability.

The new ads will begin to appear later this month in the U.S. only for now, and will feature products and services from an initial test group of advertisers. The ads will also be clearly labeled and won’t influence the answers ChatGPT provides, the company notes.

The move follows the launch of Meta’s Muse, an agentic AI app which is free to everyone and a growing competitor for leading AI chatbots, like ChatGPT.

OpenAI introduced ads earlier this year to support its free and low-cost subscription tiers, and expanded them to India in August.

Now, the plan is to woo online advertisers who want to appeal to their potential customers by using more visual imagery to tell their stories. Eventually, those ads will allow them to target ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion weekly users, once they roll out globally.

However, integrating such ads could also prove disruptive to the user experience. But perhaps that’s partly the point, as the ads could push more casual users to pay for a subscription in order to avoid them.