Right now, pretty much every AI product loses money. That’s not hyperbole — the cost of AI is so great, and the output so useless, that there’s really not a way to bring the product to profitability.

Still, since a hefty amount of our economy has been built on this scam, the companies involved feel the need to make *some* effort to actually make money. One such effort has come in the form of advertising.

To date, this has been really, embarrassingly ineffective. For example, AI search engine Perplexity admitted that it was only able to generate $20,000 in advertising revenue last year. But OpenAI’s ChatGPT says they’re considering the idea of incorporating ads — not on the site itself, but in the responses.

For the time being, Altman says this could just be taking a commission for a hotel or restaurant that ChatGPT recommends. When pressed on this, he was not able to explain how else advertising might be used, though he said it would not be like Google’s advertising, which pushes promoted results to the top.

As noted by users on X, this leaves open the alarming possibility that ads could be fluidly incorporated into responses. “Using ChatGPT to ‘write’ a novel? Your main character just bought a new 2026 Ford and really loves it. Your story is based in Victorian England? Your main character is musing about how wonderful life will be in the future when they can buy a new 2026 Ford,” joked X user Wetterschneider.

For the time being, ChatGPT remains ad-free — and also filled with lies and hallucinations.