OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is making a major push into advertising, according to a report from Semafor. The outlet describes a "$100 billion ad bet," reporting that OpenAI is targeting $100 billion in advertising revenue by the end of the decade.
That figure marks a notable strategic shift for a company best known for its AI chatbot rather than for selling ads. Reaching it would mean building an advertising business of enormous scale in just a few years.
According to Ad Age, OpenAI has also been revealing more details of what the publication calls its "ChatGPT ads playbook" — an indication that the company is moving from ambition toward a concrete plan for how advertising would work inside its products.
The reports, echoed by investingLive citing Semafor, together sketch a picture of OpenAI preparing to turn its widely used chatbot into a platform that generates revenue from advertisers, not just from subscriptions and business customers.
The specific mechanics of how ads would appear in ChatGPT, and how user data or conversations might factor in, are part of the playbook details that Ad Age says OpenAI is beginning to disclose. The sources here do not spell out a launch date or the full format of those ads.
Why it matters: If OpenAI succeeds in building a $100 billion advertising business around ChatGPT, it would place one of the world's most prominent AI companies in direct competition with the advertising giants that dominate the internet — and reshape how hundreds of millions of people encounter ads while using AI tools.