Sam Altman’s ChatGPT Ads Strategy: Not Copying Google

In a November 2025 podcast with Tyler Cowen, Sam Altman revealed OpenAI's thinking on advertising, and it's more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

Here's the paradox Altman highlighted: even when ChatGPT was hallucinating regularly, users still rated it as their most trusted big tech product.

The explanation? Incentive alignment.

Google needs you to click on ads, which means the perfect answer is actually bad for their business model. Show someone exactly what they need, and there's no reason to click anything else. Users understand this tension, even if they don't think about it consciously.

With ChatGPT, you're the customer. You pay a subscription, so the product works for you. That fundamental difference in who pays whom creates a different relationship—one where users feel ChatGPT is on their side, mistakes and all.

Watch the full conversation:

The Line Between Acceptable and Toxic

Altman laid out his framework for monetization: transaction fees are fine, pay-for-placement is poison.

If a hotel company could pay to get ranked higher than a better option, users would lose faith immediately. The entire value of ChatGPT collapses if people suspect it's shilling for whoever pays most.

But if ChatGPT recommends the genuinely best hotel and happens to collect a standard booking commission, identical for every property, that doesn't corrupt the recommendation. The fee comes after the decision, not before it.

This distinction matters. One model preserves trust, the other destroys it.

What Really Drives OpenAI's Revenue Vision

Altman was blunt: hotel bookings aren't the endgame. He expects margins on most transactions, including travel, to compress dramatically anyway.

His real focus? Using advanced AI for problems that matter: discovering drugs, advancing science, solving challenges only the most capable models can handle. That's where he sees OpenAI's actual revenue potential, not in skimming booking fees.

He acknowledged ChatGPT's consumer features might not maximize profit, but called them important for the world regardless.

The Plot Twist: Advertising Isn't Off The Table

Despite spending much of the conversation explaining why Google-style ads would be catastrophic, Altman surprised the interviewer near the end.

He admitted some form of advertising will probably appear on ChatGPT eventually. Not pay-to-rank, he still considers that toxic, but other models that could work. He was vague about specifics, saying he has "no idea" what those ads would look like, and that he's deliberately staying hands-off on the details.

His team is apparently exploring options, but advertising remains secondary to bigger opportunities.

What This Actually Means

Altman's position isn't "no ads ever." It's "no ads that break user trust."

The internet has run on advertising for three decades, built largely on the model Altman criticizes: making the user experience slightly worse to generate revenue. His bet is that ChatGPT can find advertising approaches that don't create that conflict.

Whether that's possible remains an open question. The pressure to monetize will only increase as OpenAI scales. Every platform that starts by rejecting traditional ads faces the same test: can you actually build something different, or do you eventually cave to the same incentives?

Altman says they'll try. The hard part is delivering on that promise when the revenue targets get serious.