OpenAI is making a major push into advertising, betting that its enormous user base can become a powerful revenue engine. Newly released U.S. data from Sensor Tower shows just how fast the effort is accelerating.
According to Sensor Tower, mobile users of ChatGPT encountered about double the ads per hour in July compared with April. Sensor Tower said, "ChatGPT is effectively diversifying its advertiser base, appealing to a wider swath of businesses, which bodes well for ramping monetization and expanding ad formats."
Sensor Tower's data shows retail remains the top ad-spend category on ChatGPT, even as its share of overall ad volume has declined. Financial services has seen the largest increase in share of ad spending, rising from 2% in April to 12% in July, making it the third-largest sector after retail and software.
Speechify, Jotform, and Natural Intelligence were tech-sector names that dominated ChatGPT ads in April. By July, none of those companies remained in Sensor Tower's top 10; Intuit, Booking Holdings, L.L.Bean, and Home Depot were among the large advertisers that had taken their place. Of all the top 10 spenders, only Scheels - a seller of athletic apparel - appeared in both April and July.
Expedia, GetYourGuide Deutschland, Talent Inc., and Quince also ranked among Sensor Tower's top ChatGPT spenders in July. BestMoney.com was also one of July's top advertisers.
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Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst, said Sensor Tower's figures draw mostly on a user panel and external data sources.
OpenAI shows advertising to non-paying users and to subscribers of its $8-a-month Go plan. These two groups account for most of OpenAI's user base. According to Sensor Tower, the ChatGPT app passed the 1-billion-user mark in May. The effort remains early; OpenAI said in May it had $100 million in annual recurring ad revenue, while Google and Meta reported $81.6 billion and $59.3 billion, respectively, in ad revenue for their latest fiscal quarters.
The rollout has been cautious by design. The company places ads beneath ChatGPT's responses and avoids showing them for health- or politics-related searches. In June, Dave Dugan, who leads ads at OpenAI, told Business Insider that, in the first few weeks, ads were placed "very conservatively" and "to prioritize the user's experience on the app." "We've learned so much about user satisfaction, and as we've now, four months in, we've gotten more confidence about how we can deliver volume," he said.
In May, OpenAI launched a self-serve ad product. Earlier, advertisers described the product to Business Insider as basic next to the ad systems that Google and Meta operate. Even so, OpenAI continues to enter new geographies and build new features, all part of an effort to draw more advertising dollars into its popular app. A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment.
This early traction comes even though OpenAI has deliberately kept ad volume low. The company has said it is learning from user satisfaction as it slowly opens up more inventory, and it has built a self-serve system for advertisers. With new geographies and features in the pipeline, OpenAI is trying to maintain the app's experience while turning its audience into a meaningful advertising business.
OpenAI's cautious approach makes sense given the size of its audience: ads currently appear only for non-paying users and Go plan subscribers. By keeping ad placements beneath responses and avoiding health- and politics-related searches, the company is trying to avoid alienating users while it builds out self-serve buying and expands into new regions. The jump from about 300 advertisers in April to more than 820 in July shows that brands are responding even with that limited inventory.
The shift from early tech advertisers to big consumer brands is a useful sign of how OpenAI's ad business is maturing. In April, tech names such as Speechify, Jotform, and Natural Intelligence dominated.
OpenAI's ad business remains tiny next to the platforms it is starting to challenge.
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