ChatGPT is starting to look a lot like Netflix — everyone swears “no ads” until the business model demands otherwise.
For months, we’ve been documenting OpenAI’s evolving (and increasingly flexible) stance on advertising inside ChatGPT. Over the last six months in particular, CEO Sam Altman has gone from sounding openly disgusted by the idea of ads to cautiously acknowledging that some form of them could work — as long as they don’t erode user trust.
Now, an eagle-eyed engineer may have spotted the clearest signal yet that ads are coming.
According to a post on X, engineer Tibor Blaho found references to upcoming ad functionality inside the ChatGPT Android app. In the latest beta, he uncovered references to an “ads feature” tied to items such as “bazaar content,” “search ad,” and “search ads carousel.”
Why This Matters:
If true, are we shocked? Not really. Every platform hates ads… right up until they need to find a few billion dollars in the couch cushions. If ChatGPT remains free (or cheap) for hundreds of millions of users, ads were always a matter of when, not if.
This discovery follows the launch of ChatGPT’s shopping feature, which we predicted would become one of the most natural places to introduce contextual — though not classic keyword-based — ads, especially given Altman’s previous comments distancing ChatGPT from Google’s “traditional search.”
Experts React:
Here are some of the best reactions on X responding to the discovery:
Unsurprisingly, some users are already venting about the possibility of ads entering ChatGPT, worried it could clutter the experience or compromise neutrality.
Our Take:
If ChatGPT begins blending organic responses with commercial ones, OpenAI will have to set a new industry standard for transparency and disclosure. Unlike social or search ads, AI responses feel inherently “authoritative” — which means any ad must be unmistakably labeled, contextually useful, and auditable. It’s a high bar. Get this wrong, and the company risks undermining the very trust advantage that fuels ChatGPT’s dominance.
Also, if OpenAI introduces ads, it won’t just reshape ChatGPT, it will reshape the entire AI ecosystem. Competitors like Anthropic and Perplexity, for example, will be forced to clarify their own monetization strategies. Meanwhile, publishers already worried about how AI-native ads could further compress the open web’s revenue streams will be even more concerned. After all, ads inside chat interfaces are embedded directly into conversational flows, not bolted on like display has historically been. It’s a compelling offer for an advertiser, even in the experimental phase.
