OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is projected to earn $2.5 billion in advertising revenue this year and could scale that figure to $100 billion by 2030, according to a Axios report.
The company has reportedly informed investors that advertising revenue could rise to $11 billion in 2027, $25 billion in 2028, and $53 billion in 2029, assuming OpenAI’s products reach 2.75 billion weekly users by 2030, the report said.
In January, OpenAI announced it would begin displaying ads in ChatGPT for certain users in the United States, aiming to increase overall revenue to support the rising expenses of developing its AI technology. These advertisements were planned to be tested with users on ChatGPT’s free tier and the lower-cost Go plan.
In late last month, an OpenAI representative stated that ChatGPT’s advertising pilot in the United States surpassed an annualized revenue of $100 million within six weeks of its debut. By that point, the company had grown its roster to more than 600 advertisers.
OpenAI is working to capture a portion of the advertising market, which is largely controlled by Alphabet’s Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta. For context, Google’s advertising operations brought in $294.69 billion in revenue in 2025, while Meta reported $196.18 billion in ad revenue for the same year.
While some analysts warned that showing ads in ChatGPT might annoy users and undermine trust, OpenAI says it has seen no effect on consumer trust metrics and reports that ad dismissal rates remain low.