According to the Financial Times, OpenAI is considering a move into advertising. CFO Sarah Friar told the newspaper the company was reviewing its advertising business model and planned to “consider” when and where its ads appear. In a follow-up statement, Friar emphasized that there are “no active plans to pursue advertising,” but it seems clear that the idea is on the table. (The FT’s reporting highlighted a recent high-profile advertising hire: Shivakumar Venkataraman, a former Google employee.)
ChatGPT makers have so far relied on subscriptions to support the development of generative AI tools. However, the costs of creating and delivering these models are incredibly high, and investors are only willing to invest billions of dollars.
But for OpenAI founder Sam Altman, this move seems uncomfortable. Asked at a recent fireside chat at Harvard Business School whether companies could adopt advertising to broaden access options, he said it would be a “last resort.” That’s not to say that OpenAI will never take advertising into account, but it doesn’t. In general, I liked those things. And advertising plus AI strikes me as uniquely unsettling.”
