OpenAI will put ads in ChatGPT. This opens a new door for dangerous influence

February 3, 2026 – 10:10 AM

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo)

How logistics industry experts plan to ‘move forward’ after COVID-19

Reasons why Filipinos love Korean culture and products

Why Batangas is the destination for budget-friendly family holidays

OpenAI has announced

Still, the move

has raised concerns

We’ve seen this before. Fifteen years ago, social media platforms struggled to turn vast audiences into profit.

The breakthrough came with targeted advertising: tailoring ads to what users search for, click on, and pay attention to. This model became the dominant revenue source for

Google

, reshaping their services so they maximized user engagement.

Large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) is

extremely expensive

. Training and running advanced models requires vast data centres, specialised chips, and constant engineering. Despite rapid user growth, many AI firms still operate at a loss. OpenAI alone expects to burn US$115 billion

over the next five years

Only a few companies can absorb these costs. For most AI providers, a scalable revenue model is urgent and targeted advertising is the obvious answer. It remains the most reliable way to profit from large audiences.

What history teaches us about OpenAI’s promises

OpenAI says

it will keep ads separate from answers and protect user privacy. These assurances may sound comforting, but, for now, they rest on vague and easily reinterpreted commitments.

offers little clarity

about what counts as “sensitive,” how broadly “health” will be defined, or who decides where the boundaries lie.

These products are

linked to recognized health and social harms

. Placed beside personalised guidance at the moment of decision-making, such ads can steer behaviour in subtle but powerful ways, even when no explicit health issue is discussed.

Similar promises

about guardrails marked the early years of social media.

History shows

how self-regulation weakens under commercial pressure, ultimately benefiting companies while leaving users exposed to harm.

Advertising incentives have a long record of undermining the public interest. The

Cambridge Analytica scandal

exposed how personal data collected for ads could be repurposed for political influence. The “

” revealed that Meta knew its platforms were causing serious harms, including to teenage mental health, but resisted changes that threatened advertising revenue.

More recent investigations

show Meta continues to generate revenue from scam and fraudulent ads even after being warned about their harms.

Why chatbots raise the stakes

Chatbots are not merely another social media feed.

People use them

in intimate, personal ways for advice, emotional support and private reflection. These interactions feel discreet and non-judgmental, and often prompt disclosures people would not make publicly.

That trust amplifies persuasion in ways social media does not. People seek help and make decisions when they consult chatbots. Even with formal separation from responses, ads appear in a private, conversational setting rather than a public feed.

As OpenAI positions ChatGPT as a “

super assistant

” for everything from finances to

health

, the line between advice and persuasion blurs.

For scammers and autocrats, the appeal of a more powerful propaganda tool is clear. For AI providers, the financial incentives to accommodate them will be hard to resist.

The root problem is a structural conflict of interest. Advertising models reward platforms for maximising engagement, yet the content that best sustains attention is often misleading, emotionally charged or harmful to health.

This is why voluntary restraint by online platforms has repeatedly failed.

Is there a better way forward?

One option is to treat AI as

digital public infrastructure

: these are essential systems designed to serve the public rather than maximise advertising revenue.

This need not exclude private firms. It requires at least one high-quality

public option

, democratically overseen — akin to public broadcasters alongside commercial media.

Elements of this model already exist. Switzerland developed the publicly funded AI system

Apertus

through its universities and national supercomputing centre. It is open source, compliant with European AI law, and free from advertising.

Australia could go further. Alongside building our own AI tools, regulators could impose clear rules on commercial providers: mandating transparency, banning health-harming or political advertising, and enforcing penalties – including shutdowns – for serious breaches.

Advertising did not corrupt social media overnight. It

slowly changed incentives

until public harm became the collateral damage of private profit. Bringing it into conversational AI risks repeating the mistake, this time in systems people trust far more deeply.

The key question is not technical but political: should AI serve the public, or advertisers and investors?

Raffaele F Ciriello

University of Sydney

Kathryn Backholer

, Co-Director, Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition,

Deakin University.

The Conversation

under a Creative Commons license. Read the

original article