OpenAI has put a lot of work lately into improving the free tier of ChatGPT. Users who want to test the chatbot don’t need to pay $20/month, and they can still use more advanced AI features, though they still can’t access everything that’s available to paying subscribers.
ChatGPT Free accounts can access a reasoning model, use the viral 4o image generation model, and generate Deep Research reports. The latter dropped earlier this week when OpenAI announced that the o4-mini model can handle more lightweight Deep Research jobs across all ChatGPT subscriptions.
But these increasingly improved ChatGPT features available to the Free tier might not remain truly free for much longer.
Currently, ChatGPT Free account holders do not have to deal with ads. That is, they’re not paying for ChatGPT access with their data, like they do with “free” Gmail or Facebook access. That might change in the not-too-distant future, as OpenAI is reportedly considering monetizing ChatGPT Free users. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard ChatGPT might get ads, but the prospect seems more likely. Apparently, OpenAI is already crunching numbers on the sort of revenue ChatGPT Free with ads will bring to the table.
According to The Information, OpenAI forecasts $125 billion in revenue in 2029.
A graph from that report appeared on social media, showing the massive differences between Fall 2024 and Winter 2025 projections. Although these graphs are just a few months apart, they show a big change in perspective during that period.
If the data is accurate, OpenAI thinks it can reach $125 billion in revenue in 2029, $25 billion more than the previous estimate. Most of that is thanks to a “new products” category that includes free user monetization.
I can’t help but wonder whether we’ll see OpenAI’s mysterious “iPhone of AI” hardware device launch by 2029. That’s the product Jony Ive’s team is creating for OpenAI, a product I’m certainly dying to see in action.
Could that product account for an overwhelming chunk of that extra revenue in the “new products” category? We have no way of knowing, as it’s unclear when that product will be launched. But I’ll point out that OpenAI sees itself making an extra $3 billion in revenue with the help of that category next year.
That’s an indication that ads are coming to ChatGPT at some point in the coming year. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned his dislike of ads on the web in previous interviews, and the company said in official remarks that it didn’t have plans for ads when it launched ChatGPT Search last year.
However, a late 2024 report gave us confirmation that OpenAI is exploring the possibility of showing ads to ChatGPT Free users.
This was well before ChatGPT’s new image generation abilities went viral online, which prompted an influx of millions of new users to ChatGPT. That sort of growth could certainly benefit from having ads on the platform, especially if most people end up using ChatGPT for free and staying with the service.
I’ve been a ChatGPT Plus user for quite a while and don’t see myself ditching the subscription. I want the latest AI features from ChatGPT and higher usage limits. I’ll continue to pay for better AI tools as long as they improve aspects of my life. Good AI can’t be free.
While the arrival of ads on ChatGPT on the Free tier is inevitable, I hope not to see any while I’m using a premium version of the chatbot. I don’t want to see OpenAI going down the same road as Google and Facebook. We’ve been tracked and profiled enough while using the web, I don’t want AI companies to do it next.
I certainly hate the idea of seeing any sort of product placement in chats with the AI, which could be a nightmare scenario for ChatGPT use. What I’m getting at is that the minute I start seeing ads inside the paid version of an AI product I might be using, I’m canceling that subscription and ditching it in favor of a competitor that doesn’t have ads.
Ads, user tracking, and privacy are the reasons why I’m not actually using Google Gemini as my main chatbot. I’d pay for Gemini access, too; I just don’t want to use AI products from a company that has been tracking what I do online for most of my life.
