Although OpenAI continues to assert that no advertisements or advertising tests are currently live in ChatGPT, Mark Chen, the company’s chief research officer, admitted that the recent promotional messages “fell short” and efforts are underway to enhance the experience.
Chen and other OpenAI executives were responding to feedback from ChatGPT’s paying subscribers who reported seeing promotional content for companies such as Peloton and Target.
In response, the company stated it was only testing methods to display apps built on the ChatGPT app platform, which it introduced in October, emphasizing that these suggestions had “no financial component.” (One user, who initially complained about the ads, responded skeptically, writing, “Bruhhh… Don’t insult your paying users.”)
Similarly, Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, posted on Friday that he was “seeing lots of confusion about ads rumors in ChatGPT.”
“There are no live tests for ads – any screenshots you’ve seen are either not real or not ads,” Turley wrote. “If we do pursue ads, we’ll take a thoughtful approach. People trust ChatGPT and anything we do will be designed to respect that.”
Earlier that same day, however, Chen responded in a more apologetic tone, acknowledging that the controversy extends beyond mere user confusion.
“I agree that anything that feels like an ad needs to be handled with care, and we fell short,” he wrote. “We’ve turned off this kind of suggestion while we improve the model’s precision. We’re also looking at better controls so you can dial this down or off if you don’t find it helpful.”
Earlier this year, Fidji Sumo, a former executive at Instacart and Facebook, joined OpenAI as CEO of Applications and was widely expected to develop the company’s advertising business. However, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that a recent memo from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red,” prioritizing work to improve ChatGPT’s quality and pushing back other products, including advertising.