According to the Financial Times, OpenAI is considering getting into the advertising space. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told the paper that the company is looking at advertising business models and wants to make “thoughtful” decisions about when and where to advertise. In a subsequent statement, Friar stressed that the company has “no active plans to get into the advertising space,” but it seems clear that the idea is on the table. (The FT report features a recent high-profile ad agency, ex-Googler Shivakumar Venkataraman.)
The makers of ChatGPT have until now relied on subscriptions to support the development of their generative AI tools. But the costs of creating and deploying these models are frighteningly high, and investors are only willing to throw a few billion dollars at the fire.
Nevertheless, the move seems to displease OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Asked at a recent Harvard Business School roundtable whether the company might introduce advertising to broaden access options, he said it would be a “last resort… I’m not saying OpenAI would never consider advertising, but I think it’s something we’re particularly bad at pairing advertising and AI.“
