OpenAI has confirmed it will begin testing advertisements inside the free version of ChatGPT later this quarter. At the same time, the company is introducing a new subscription tier called ChatGPT Go priced at $8 per month, aimed at users who want faster responses and higher usage limits without paying the full $20 for ChatGPT Plus.
The move ends months of speculation about whether OpenAI would follow competitors like Google and Perplexity in placing ads inside AI chat interfaces. In a short blog post published today, OpenAI stated:
“To support the long-term sustainability of free access to ChatGPT, we plan to test a limited number of relevant, non-intrusive ads in the free tier. Ads will only appear in specific, clearly marked sections and will never interrupt the core conversation experience. We will share more details as testing begins.”
“I kind of think of ads as like a last resort for us as a business model,” – Sam Altman, October 2024 https://t.co/BWHiXPlVFD pic.twitter.com/dw2ywE1pYi
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) January 16, 2026
The company emphasised that ads will be contextual (e.g., related to the topic of the conversation) and will not use personal chat data for targeting. Users who upgrade to any paid plan (including the new Go tier) will see no ads.
