ChatGPT's First Ad Spotted: Platform's Monetization Begins

Now, a user on X, shared that he was already seeing ads inside a live ChatGPT conversation. According to the X post, an unexpected promotional card appeared while he was chatting about 'Elon on Nikhil's podcast.' The ad reportedly read: "Find a fitness class, Connect Peloton." The user insisted that the ad should have been at least relevant to the conversation he was having. Some users pointed out that if this is going to happen across the platform, OpenAI should consider reducing pricing for the paid tiers.

These reports arrive shortly after OpenAI launched Shopping Research, a feature that turns ChatGPT into a personalised product advisor powered by a specialised version of GPT-5 mini. The tool helps users research items, compare options and generate buying guides by pulling from high-quality retail sources. At launch, OpenAI emphasised that product listings were not sponsored, user chats were not shared with retailers, and merchants had no influence over rankings.

The shopping feature was framed as an organic, utility-focused upgrade to ChatGPT's capabilities. The sudden appearance of ad-related code and user-reported ads now raises new questions about OpenAI's monetisation strategy. It remains unclear whether these ads are part of a controlled experiment, an early rollout, or linked to the shopping feature that OpenAI said would remain unsponsored.