Is OpenAI In Trouble? Inside The Story of Why They May Start Running Ads on ChatGPT

OpenAI's decision to introduce advertising into ChatGPT has turned a long-simmering financial question into an urgent one: How long can the company sustain its current path? The AI sector continues to absorb tens of billions of pounds in spending as companies race to build larger models and the infrastructure required to run them, backed by promises of future profits that remain largely theoretical.

While investors have so far supported high valuations, turning that confidence into reliable revenue has proven difficult for most firms, particularly those without established businesses to fall back on.

A Costly Race With No Safety Net

Unlike competitors such as Google and Meta, which generate substantial income from advertising and other legacy operations, OpenAI relies heavily on external funding. Despite this, it has committed to spending well over £740 billion (approximately $1 trillion) before the end of the decade, a scale of investment that carries considerable risk as revenue growth struggles to keep pace. User willingness to pay for ChatGPT subscriptions has remained limited, leaving the company searching for alternative income streams.

This imbalance has raised concerns about how long OpenAI can continue burning cash at its current rate. In an essay for the New York Times, Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, predicted that OpenAI could run out of money 'over the next 18 months'. He argued that rivals with profitable core businesses could afford to pour hundreds of billions into AI development, while OpenAI lacks that cushion.

The Turn Towards Advertising

Against this backdrop, OpenAI has confirmed plans to begin testing advertisements within ChatGPT. In a blog post published on Friday, the company said ads would appear for US users on the free and Go tiers, while paid options such as Pro, Business and Enterprise would remain ad-free. OpenAI framed the move as a necessary trade-off, stating, 'As ChatGPT becomes more capable and widely used, we're looking at ways to continue offering more intelligence to everyone.'

The company has stressed that ads will be clearly separated from responses and that conversations will not be shared or sold to advertisers. It added that answers would remain 'driven by what's objectively useful, never by advertising', an assurance aimed at protecting user trust. Ads will be labelled, optional to dismiss, unavailable to under-18s, and excluded from sensitive areas such as health and politics.

User Backlash And Quiet Testing

The announcement followed months of user frustration after chatbot replies appeared to recommend unrelated products or services. OpenAI said these were poorly timed 'suggestions', but the explanation failed to reassure many users, including some paying £148 per month (approximately $200) for ChatGPT Pro. Reporting has since revealed that OpenAI had been quietly testing advertising concepts internally, experimenting with formats designed not to alienate users.

A Make-Or-Break Moment

Many analysts believe 2026 could be a decisive year for OpenAI. Mallaby has suggested that, if funding dries up, the company could be absorbed by a cash-rich giant such as Microsoft or Amazon, rather than collapsing outright. Even then, he argued that an OpenAI failure 'wouldn't be an indictment of AI', but rather 'the end of the most hype-driven builder of it'.