Overview
- OpenAI’s U.S. trial is showing clearly labeled sponsored placements to Free and Go users, with exclusions for sensitive topics, no ads to minors, and a pledge not to share personal data with advertisers.
- Reported terms put ChatGPT ads at about $60 CPM with roughly $200,000 minimum commitments, with early participation from brands such as Target, Williams‑Sonoma, and Adobe, and Shopify enabling merchant buys via its Shop Campaigns network.
- COO Brad Lightcap said the rollout will be iterative with a focus on privacy, trust, and product quality, and he declined to specify any timeline for expansion beyond the United States.
- Anthropic used Super Bowl spots to promise Claude will remain ad‑free, a message followed by a jump in its U.S. App Store rank and downloads.
- The broader market is split as Google and Microsoft integrate or test ads, Perplexity pulls back toward subscriptions and enterprise, and new polling finds 41% of U.S. adults view AI ads as intrusive while only 8% would pay monthly for an ad‑free option.