I’ve been a ChatGPT Plus subscriber for a while now, and I don’t plan on switching to the Free tier anytime soon. ChatGPT Plus gives me access to the newest models and features much sooner than the Free tier. Also, the limits with the chatbot are higher on the Plus plan, so you won’t run into interruptions.
Still, the ChatGPT Free option gives you quick access to OpenAI’s chatbot, letting you explore some of its best features to determine whether you’d even want to consider the Plus subscription in the first place.
Also, ChatGPT Free is truly free, as you don’t have to deal with any ads that would help OpenAI pay for your interactions with the AI. You don’t have to agree to have your chats train the AI, either. That’s why it has limits in place.
Unsurprisingly, OpenAI is considering a switch to an ad-based model in ChatGPT at some point in the future. It won’t happen anytime soon, but the company confirmed it’s looking at inserting ads in ChatGPT.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told The Financial Times that the company is considering showing ads to non-paying ChatGPT users in the future. Ads could help cover the rising costs of AI servers and even increase profits. OpenAI is no longer a non-profit, after all, so it’ll be chasing revenues like any other tech giant.
We didn’t really need any confirmation from a company that launched a Google Search alternative and is considering a web browser of its own. It goes without saying that ads could be part of the ChatGPT Free experience.
Hopefully, however, OpenAI will not go the same route as Google. The latter made the web discoverable to the world with its Google Search product. But Google also made us hate online ads over the years, and Google Search along with it, because it tracked us everywhere on the web, creating profiles of user preferences for better ad-targeting.
The good news is that OpenAI will not start running ads on ChatGPT Free anytime soon. The company has many concerns about ads, and that’s great to hear. Friar told the Times that OpenAI needs to be “thoughtful about when and where” ads will be implemented.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly warming up to the idea of ads, though he has previously said he’s not a fan of them.
Friar’s remarks aren’t just answers to hypothetical scenarios. OpenAI hired former advertising talents from Meta and Google earlier this year. The only thing they could be working on at OpenAI is ad tech for ChatGPT.
I’ll also remind you of other reports detailing OpenAI’s plans for monetizing ChatGPT in the future that called for much more expensive subscription tiers. Placing ads in the free version of ChatGPT makes even more sense in that context, assuming those reports were accurate.
On the same note, it’ll be interesting to see what comes first: Ads in ChatGPT Free or a Plus subscription increase for premium users.
I will point out that OpenAI might get an influx of extra ChatGPT users in the near future as ChatGPT becomes available through Siri on the iPhone. In turn, iPhone users will be able to buy a Plus subscription from the iPhone’s settings app.