There have been murmurs about OpenAI introducing ads in ChatGPT, but no ads have materialized so far. And it might already be too late.
Ben Thompson, the influential tech analyst behind the Stratechery blog, recently delivered a scathing assessment of OpenAI’s advertising strategy—or lack thereof. In a conversation that touched on the company’s hiring practices and strategic missteps, Thompson laid out a compelling case for why OpenAI’s resistance to advertising isn’t just a missed opportunity, but a decision that could imperil the entire company. His analysis is particularly striking given OpenAI’s recruitment of numerous Meta executives, a company that has mastered the art of ad-supported consumer products.
“OpenAI has hired so many Meta people. It confuses me why they haven’t been on board with (ads),” Thompson said on the TBPN podcast. “It’s a win-win-win. You need money to fund your operation. The best way to make money is to show ads. Why? Because you get to deliver a better product to more people.”
Thompson’s argument challenges a common assumption in tech circles—that advertising somehow degrades the user experience or creates a two-tiered system. “This idea that we’re going to commit to a world where poor people get a worse product—that’s not how tech works,” he argues. “The reason why tech is amazing is it generates a ton of consumer surplus. You do this upfront investment and because it’s monetized by ads, everyone gets the best product. It’s great.”
The timing critique is particularly damning. “OpenAI has had this religious devotion for so long about not doing this. If they had launched the world’s crappiest ads in 2023, by today in 2025 they’d be good. They’d be making money and people wouldn’t rebel against it,” Thompson says. “Now they’re going to have to launch ads, they’re going to suck, and people will be like, ‘this sucks, I’ll just go to Gemini or whatever it might be.’ It drives me bonkers.”
Thompson acknowledges the competitive dynamics at play. There’s a first-mover disadvantage concern: “The first LLM that has ads, there’ll be a whole press cycle about ‘oh, Gemini’s the ad one.'” But he believes this would have been “a lot easier if you were the only LLM.” The hesitation, in his view, has created a worse problem. “It risks the entire company. They need to get their opportunities in the consumer space first and foremost, because the consumer space needs to monetize via ads. And the fact they didn’t get there or start to get there, still haven’t started to get there—it’s a company-imperiling poor decision.”
The implications of Thompson’s analysis are sobering. OpenAI is burning through billions in operational costs while competitors like Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude gain ground in the consumer and enterprise space respectively. The company’s reported $5 billion loss in 2024, coupled with its pivot to a for-profit structure, suggests the current subscription-only model isn’t sustainable. OpenAI’s reluctance to embrace this proven model, particularly after hiring executives who built it, represents not just a strategic miscalculation but potentially an existential threat. As the AI race intensifies and competitors become more willing to experiment with monetization, OpenAI’s window to introduce advertising on favorable terms may be rapidly closing.