Free ChatGPT users get ads picked from whatever they just asked about

Say you’re on the free plan and you ask ChatGPT to help you pick a mattress. An ad may turn up next to the answer, and it got there because of what you just asked about, plus your rough location and whatever device you’re on. What ChatGPT remembers about you from earlier chats doesn’t come into it, at least not yet.

Which plans get ads

Ads may show up for people on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business and Education subscribers do not get them, and ad-free options remain available. If you are on a free account and would rather not have advertising in the product at all, the plan you are on is the thing to check.

You get asked before the ads get personal

OpenAI will put a choice in front of you before personalized ads begin: opt in, or don’t. Take the offer and the ads start drawing on your activity inside the product, including ads you have interacted with and context from your conversations, with a setting to manage the choice afterward. Decline, and selection stays on the current topic plus that same slim set of signals. The contextual information is described as limited, and the two things named are general location and device type.

Whether you look at an ad or tap it gets counted, and the count feeds back into judging how well the advertising works. “Advertisers only receive overall information about how their ads perform, such as total views or clicks.”

What OpenAI says stays the same

Ads carry labels and sit visually apart from the model’s replies. On the question a lot of people will ask first, OpenAI says: “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you.” Your conversations and personal details are not handed to advertisers, who get no access to chats, chat history, memories, or personal details.

The privacy policy is being updated to spell out how the ads work and what controls you have over them. Until the personalization prompt shows up in your account, the topic on your screen is what picks the ad.