Will ChatGPT get ads soon? OpenAI's answer might surprise you
'We will build other products, and those other products can have different dimensions to them, and maybe ChatGPT just isn't an ads-y product because it's just so deeply accountable to your goals. But it doesn't mean that we wouldn't build other things in the future, too,' Turley noted.
'Maybe there is a certain market where people aren't willing to pay us, yet we want to offer the best, latest, and greatest. Maybe that would be a place to consider other indirect forms of monetization,' he added.
'If we ever did that I'd want to be very, very careful and deliberate because I really think that the thing that makes ChatGPT magical is the fact that you get the best answer for you and there's no other stakeholder in the middle. It's personalized as to your needs and tastes, etc. But we're not trying to upsell you on something like that or to boost some pay-to-play provider or product. And maybe there are ways of doing ads that preserve that and that preserve the incentive structure, but I think that would be a novel concept and we'd have to be very deliberate,' the OpenAI executive further noted.
ChatGPT recently surpassed 700 million total weekly users, but only 20 million of them are paid subscribers. As per an earlier Bloomberg report, OpenAI is expected to generate around $12.7 billion in revenue through its subscriptions this year, but the AI startup is still not expecting to be cash-flow positive until 2029.
Speaking about the huge number of free users of ChatGPT, Turley said, 'I actually don't view the fact that the vast majority of our users are free as necessarily a liability. I really think it's a funnel that we can build off of to build differentiated offerings for people who are willing to pay.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
Gamblers now bet on AI models like racehorses
Now that AI developers are getting paid like pro athletes, it's fitting that fans are placing big bets on how well they're doing their jobs. On Kalshi, Polymarket and other sites where people wager 'predictions" on real-world events, gamblers lay down millions each month on their picks for AI's top model. The AI arms race is playing out in plain sight on social media, ranking sites and obscure corners of the internet where enthusiasts hunt for clues. The constant buzz makes the topic appealing for wagers, though not every scrap of information is meaningful. Foster McCoy made $10,000 in a few hours in early August by betting against the success of OpenAI's GPT-5 release. The 27-year-old day trader noticed people were misreading an online ranking site that appeared to hype GPT-5, so he put $4,500 on its competitor, Google's Gemini, to be 'Best AI This Month." As more bettors fell in line with his call, he cashed out. That's just another day for McCoy, who has traded $3.2 million on Kalshi since the start of 2025—making $170,000. He's part of a growing contingent of bettors making hundreds of trades a week on AI markets, on a range of wagers such as 'Best AI at the end of 2025," 'AI regulation becomes federal law this year," and 'Will [Chief Executive] Sam Altman be granted an equity stake in OpenAI this year?" Trading volume across AI prediction markets has surged to around $20 million this month. Kalshi, the only platform currently available in the U.S., is seeing 10 times the volume on AI trades compared with the start of the year, a spokesman says. Each bet, or 'contract," is priced in cents to reflect the odds: McCoy bought thousands of Gemini contracts at around 40 cents, meaning it had a 40% chance of winning. If the bet had settled and Gemini won, McCoy's 40 cents would become a dollar. If Gemini lost, McCoy would lose it all. But much of the action happens before the final outcome. As more people piled into the Gemini bet, the contract price rose. McCoy sold when it had reached 87 cents. It's like betting on a sports match, only with the option to cash out when the odds rise in favor of your bet. 'You're just betting against what the other guy knows," says McCoy, who credits his success to 'being chronically online." He trades from home on a triple-monitor setup tuned to the holy trinity of AI betting: X, Discord and LMArena, a leaderboard where people rate AI model performance in blind tests. Social-media beefs can be gold for gamblers. After GPT-5's debut, a flurry of Elon Musk posts claiming the superiority of his xAI Grok chatbot sent the 'Grok to Win" market up more than 500% within hours. Before long, it had fallen nearly all the way back down. Bettors end up down rabbit holes hunting for more obscure tidbits. Harvard undergraduate Rishab Jain often scans X accounts of lesser-known researchers. The day before GPT-5's release, OpenAI's Sam Altman posted an image of the Death Star from 'Star Wars." When a researcher from Google's DeepMind replied with an image of the killer globe under attack, Jain read it as a sign of confidence from Gemini's makers. Jain also scrapes source files from Google's apps and monitors public GitHub repositories tied to its products, looking for back-end changes that might signal a soon-to-be-released Gemini model. 'I'm almost obsessively up-to-date with what's going on in this world," Jain says. 'Google has so many products that need to integrate a new model before it officially launches, and you can see those changes happening in the back end if you know where to look." Since starting in June, he has won $3,500. Strategies vary. Some bet on the big industry players, others buy low on less-known or soon-to-be-updated models. Some compare odds on Kalshi and Polymarket to find arbitrage opportunities in the odds. As volume for these AI trades continues to grow, the incentive for good information will only increase, and the squeeze on casual bettors will get tighter, says Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University. 'When you have better information in these kinds of markets, you can make better decisions," Hanson says. 'If you know a little more, you make more money." For now, the markets still draw a mix of sharks like McCoy and Jain along with casual bettors. 'I'm just a dude that likes tech and has some time and money," says James Cole, a 35-year-old who recently shut down a company he founded. 'I'm speculating with mostly instinct and 10 minutes of research." He says he's up for the year…so far. Write to Ben Raab at
News18
4 hours ago
- News18
US Big Tech Firms Accused Of Bending H-1B Rules With Newspaper Job Listings: Report
Last Updated: In recent months, big tech companies such as OpenAI and Instacart have put job ads, asking applicants to send their resumes to the immigration or 'global mobility' departments. Companies that hire H-1B foreign workers and want to sponsor them for a green card must advertise those jobs to American workers. But a media report said that the job ads placed in local newspapers are aimed at immigrants instead. In recent months, big tech companies such as OpenAI and Instacart have put job advertisements in the San Francisco Chronicle, asking applicants to send their resumes to the immigration or 'global mobility" departments, Newsweek reported. a website that looks for H-1B job postings to share with Americans, told Newsweek that most Americans don't even realise big tech firms are regularly discriminating against them. 'At a time when unemployment for college graduates is shifting sharply upward, it is important to call out hiring discrimination that could keep Americans unemployed," they said. also said that recruitment for these roles is done separately from the firms' standard recruitment process. 'These unusual application methods are likely to drive fewer applications than normal processes like posting ads on the company job board or on mainstream career sites like LinkedIn," they said. Another tech company, Instacart, advertised several jobs and also asked applicants to apply through a similar department. Udemy, the online learning platform, posted a job for a Director of Marketing Analytics and Data Science, telling applicants to send their resumes to 'immigration@ according to the Newsweek report. The H-1B program lets US companies, especially tech firms, hire skilled foreign workers for specialised jobs. A large number of H-1B visas go to Indian nationals each year, and the programme is an important way for many students from US universities to move into full-time jobs. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Mint
4 hours ago
- Mint
AI Boom Seen Driving Next Decade of Emerging Markets Performance
(Bloomberg) -- Emerging-market funds are pivoting to capture the artificial intelligence craze, with some investors predicting that booming technology spending will drive returns for years to come. Encouraged by the success of Chinese AI developer DeepSeek and Asia's powerhouse semiconductor firms, asset managers like AllSpring Global Investments and GIB Asset Management are concentrating more of their portfolio in AI stocks. That's been a winning trade, with AI companies being the six biggest contributors to the rally in Bloomberg's EM stocks index this year. 'This trend could last for the next 10 to 20 years,' said Alison Shimada, head of total emerging markets equity at AllSpring, which oversees $611 billion. 'The impact on local populations within EM will be transformational.' While much of the AI investment frenzy has focused on a handful of Silicon Valley firms, EM companies that can harness the technology or supply crucial components are benefitting. AI servers, for example, have become the main growth driver for Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which is known as Foxconn. The top contributors to Bloomberg's EM stock index this year are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Tencent Holdings Ltd., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc. and Xiaomi Corporation, together accounting for 37% of the index's rally. Emerging-market stocks that are highly exposed to AI have even outperformed the so-called Magnificent Seven megacap tech firms so far this year, according to equities strategists at Citigroup Inc. 'You cannot invest in emerging markets without having a sanguine and optimistic view of what this AI story can evolve into from a corporate earnings perspective,' said Kunal Desai, London-based co-portfolio manager for global emerging markets equities at GIB Asset Management. Desai said that Taiwan and South Korea will be 'central drivers' of the EM market story over the next two to three years, with Malaysia, China, India, parts of Latin America and the Middle East seeing 'disproportionate gains' due to their exposure to AI data and applications. His fund has invested in AI stocks during recent market dips, predicting that a third of emerging market returns will come from AI-related stocks in the coming years. There are signs that the momentum will continue as AI adoption accelerates across segments including cloud computing and electrical vehicles. The average estimate of forward 12-month earnings for EM tech stocks has increased 15% since the start of the year, compared to 6% for EM stocks overall. 'The share of AI contribution from the performance standpoint will only grow from here,' said Xingchen Yu, an emerging markets strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management. 'The rise of AI and tech is creating a new layer of secular growth, especially in North Asia.' The AI revolution could help EM stocks overcome a key obstacle: earnings performance. Company results have lagged forecasts every quarter since early 2022, with MSCI EM Index companies collectively missing profit expectations by more than 12%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But firms in the AI-heavy information-technology sector have consistently met earnings projections since the fourth quarter of last year, boosting investor confidence. 'This sector has been expected to grow explosively and will continue to do so in the future,' said Young Jae Lee, senior investment manager at Pictet Asset Management Ltd. 'AI will continue to be a key sector within emerging markets.' --With assistance from Jorgelina do Rosario. More stories like this are available on
