Right now you guys probably grumble at ChatGPT for spoiling em dashes.

Or maybe being too agreeable or being too stuff when you’re trying to get some real work done. (Some of you might even not like it for “not being able to count number of r’s in strawberry.)

But what if I tell you this is just the beginning. Now imagine adding something very old internet to that list. Ads, inside your chats.

As spotted by Tibor Blaho, lead engineer at AIPRM, spotted clear references to an ad system hiding in the code of latest ChatGPT Android beta. The strings mention an ads feature, search ad, search ads carousel and even something called bazaar content, which sounds a lot like a shopping layer built directly into the app.

That code on its own would already be a strong signal. But a few days back, user shared a screenshot of what looks like an actual promo card that appeared inside ChatGPT. It showed up under a normal answer while they were asking about an Elon Musk interview, which means the ad was not even close to the topic of the chat. Early tests seem to focus on getting the format to render inside conversations, not on smart targeting yet.

Taken together, the beta strings and that promo card point to a clear direction. OpenAI is building search style and shopping style ads that can appear when you ask ChatGPT to look things up, compare products or do research. Think of sponsored cards or a horizontal strip of offers that live inside the answer area rather than old school banners floating around the interface. Free users are the most likely audience for this and most observers expect paid tiers to stay relatively clean.

Now, this is strange because I clearly remember reading about Sam Altman saying: “I will disclose, just as a personal bias, that I hate ads.” He also said the idea of mixing advertising with artificial intelligence felt particularly disturbing because it can quietly bias what people see as neutral information.

Anyway, over the past year, tone has shifted. In a recent interview he talked about how Instagram had changed his mind and said he now loves Instagram ads because they have actually helped him discover products.

Basically, he has started to float the idea that there might be a cool ad product that is a net win for users and has drawn a very firm line in public.

The financial backdrop also explains why this ads for ChatGPT are being tested so hard. OpenAI is now a giant business in terms of revenue, with a run rate of around ten billion dollars as of mid 2025 and a target that goes even higher by the end of the year. At the same time, the company reportedly lost about five billion dollars on roughly three point seven billion dollars of revenue in twenty twenty four and expects cash burn to climb close to eight billion dollars this year, largely due to compute and research costs.