Looks like ads really are coming to ChatGPT.
In a post on X, Tibor Blaho, an engineer at AIPRM who has found leaks like these in the past, showed some coding from the ChatGPT Android app 1.2025.329 beta. It includes "new references to an 'ads feature' with 'bazaar content,' 'search ad' and 'search ads carousel.'"
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If this comes to fruition, it means the free version of the ChatGPT app is about to get ads. This isn't new to search functions in general — you're probably used to seeing ads on Google, for instance.
ChatGPT has been reluctant to put ads on its app, instead opting for a revenue stream tied to subscriptions to its Pro version and access to its API.
However, the company is still not profitable. According to a report from HSBC, OpenAI won’t make money until 2030, and the company needs to find an extra $207 billion to power its growth plans in the meantime, Forbes reported.
This shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said in a podcast over the summer that while the company hasn't "done any advertising product yet," that doesn't mean it's off the table. After all, roughly 800 million people use ChatGPT every week; that's a significant audience to target for advertising.
"I'm not totally against it. I can point to areas where I like ads. I think ads on Instagram, kinda cool. I bought a bunch of stuff from them. But I am, like, I think it'd be very hard to…I mean, take a lot of care to get right," Altman said at the time.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.