OpenAI will test ads in ChatGPT's Free and Go tiers

On 16 January 2026, OpenAI confirmed what the industry had expected for months: ads are coming to ChatGPT.

The plan

• A test for some US users on the Free tier and the Go plan, an $8-a-month subscription launched globally the same week.
• Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise stay ad-free (Education was later added to the ad-free list).
• Ads sit at the bottom of responses, separate from the answer, and are labelled as sponsored.

The guardrails

• No ads in conversations about health, mental health or politics.
• No ads for accounts identified as under 18.
• Users can dismiss an ad, see why it appeared, and turn off personalisation.
• Sam Altman: OpenAI "will not accept money to influence the answer ChatGPT gives you", and conversations are kept private from advertisers.

The test went live for a subset of US Free and Go users on 9 February 2026.

Why it matters

This was the moment conversational AI became a paid media channel. Within months the ads business passed a $1 billion run rate, expanded to India in August and to 89 countries by October. For marketers, the January principles still define the rules of the placement: your ad sits next to an answer you cannot buy, so the organic answer about your brand matters as much as the ad.