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Under fire again for potentially releasing ads. We don't know for sure, but there's been pop ups that look suspicious lately and people are starting to talk about them. Today we're going to talk about, you know, some of the implications of that as they're going to be ads moving forward. Is it going to ruin AI for everybody? And what's a OpenAI going to do to make money long term? Before we get into all that, Jaden, why don't you tell them about our school community?
C
Yeah. So I think specifically with this story about the ads getting in into ChatGPT, we see just how valuable it is to have your product ranked inside of ChatGPT and actually showing up. Like whether they're doing it on purpose or it's an accident, it is very valuable. So Jamie and I actually released an entire video today we recorded about how to get your business or service ranked inside of Chat GPT or Gemini or any of the AI models, how to have people actually find you when they search for whatever you do. So if you want to get access to that, we have a side Cyber Monday Black Friday deal right now on our school community it is 19amonth. Usually it is much more. And in the, in the future the price will go up. But if you lock in that price, you can get access to over 60 videos that we have recorded. We're doing this for over a year. We have over 30 members inside of the group, all sharing what they're doing and we share basically all the insider stuff, all the secret stuff that we don't share publicly is all inside of the school community. You get access to that and today's video where we show how to rank your business inside of Chat GPT. It's, it's definitely something that we hope to see you on. Link is in the description. All right, so I think with all of this, this is definitely, like you mentioned, it's not guaranteed that ChatGPT is rolling out ads. I think this was probably an experiment. I personally believe that it was ads. It was intentional, but it was sort of look and see how people react. If people react too negatively, maybe they'll pull back. The thing that I think rubs people the wrong way is that this was on a pro account. So someone is paying money to use the service, and there's ads embedded. I think if you're using something like Facebook, it's free. You expect there to be ads. If it's Google, it's free. You expect there to be ads. When you pay, you do not expect there to be ads. You pay for things. You get a subscription so that there are no ads, or at least you would hope that. There is a lot of disclosure, and they're very public about that. I think that's what's rubbing people the wrong way. All of this came from a recent Twitter thread, but I guess we'll break down what people are saying about it there. But, Jamie, I guess what's your thought on whether this was intentional or unintentional?
B
I mean, it's tricky because they're claiming it was for, like, an app integration, you know, so. And we'll get more into it. But basically that's a screenshot that this guy posted on Twitter or on X, it says, you know, find a fitness class, and then it says connect Peloton. So people are basically saying, is that an ad for Peloton, or is it just like making you aware that Peloton can be integrated with ChatGPT? But I think people are assuming it's an ad, which I kind of think you're right, or it was at least a test for ads. So that's where kind of people are, you know, rubbed the wrong way by this. And I think, honestly, if. If they do start doing ads, it's going to really discredit them a lot. They're going to lose a lot of credibility and trust from people. Right now, people are using ChatGPT for hundreds of searches a day, I'm sure. So I use it. I use it almost every day for searches. And so I'm just. I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? Do you think it's actually an ad?
C
Well, OpenAI did respond is the interesting part about this story. So I'll break you. I'll. We'll. We're going to. We'll go through and read the thread on X. So basically, Cole Tregask over on X said ChatGPT started posting ads on Pro accounts, by the way, Pro accounts, that's the $200 a month, I believe. Right? For the pro.
B
Yeah.
C
And. Or at least either him or one of the other people that saw an ad was on the $200 a month. So obviously you're paying plenty of money. You don't want to see ads. He said, I hope this is just testing or a mistake. Otherwise is an unsubscribe from me. On the flip side, the ad seems completely unrelated to the chat. That's another thing that also is annoying is it seems like this has nothing to do with the chat. And he's like, he takes that moment and he's like, don't do it. Okay, so what happened? Basically he was having a conversation with it and at the bottom he completely unrelated. It said, find a fitness class. And then it was like connect Peloton and it has like a button to go, you know, to Peloton and finding a fitness class. Someone else flagged that exact same find a fitness class, collect a Peloton thing below. And then Cole said to clarify the person, or I guess actually this was just one person. So he was reposting them. He said, they've confirmed that they have a pro account, they're on the 200amonth ChatGPT Pro plan. And then OpenAI actually responded to them and they said, hi, Cole, thanks for flagging. This is not an ad. There's no financial component. It's only a suggestion to install Peloton's app. But the lack of relevancy makes it bad slash confusing experience. We're iterating on the suggestions and ui, trying to make sure they're awesome. Okay. And then he also says, in case it's helpful, here's a blog post we put out in October when we launched the apps SDK. It covers the discovery UX at high level. We have iterated since then and we'll continue to do so. It's new territory and we're working hard to get it right. Okay, I appreciate the transparency from OpenAI, but basically what they're saying is they have this new, this new like app program where you can get apps embedded into chat GBT and. And there's some glitch that made this app suggestion appear. A couple things that are interesting to me. The first one is that they say this isn't an ad because there's no financial component. Right. So they're not getting paid for it. I actually don't think that that would be exclusively making it an ad or not an ad because I think there's other ways these companies could make partnerships and so technically it could be an ad even if they weren't getting directly paid per click. Right. Like, let's say they have some sort of technological partnership with Peloton and ChatGPT. Like maybe you put ChatGPT inside of Peloton bikes. It's not there yet, but you could imagine that that's a future they're looking at. And so pushing Peloton, I would consider it still an ad. Okay. But regardless, let's just say it's a glitch. What I do think is interesting is that basically even if they're not paying, this is testing the groundwork for putting ads inside. You have these kind of buttons and these bubbles below and they're like, yeah, it's irrelevant. So it's super weird. We're going to fix it. Well, okay, you showed an irrelevant. Go download this random app. Like, come on, that's, that's totally an ad. And I think it's the path that they will take in the future to when they eventually actually roll out ads and put ads inside of ChatGPT. In my mind, there's no doubt that they will add ads. Right. You think about like Facebook when everyone had this whole drama about like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg is going to start making people pay for Facebook. I don't know if, if you remember this, Jamie, from like 15 years ago and ever since then, Facebook's website has always had like free forever on the homepage. Okay, well, obviously they monetize heavily with ads, but it's free to sign up for an account. GPT went the other way. They make you sign up for an account, but it doesn't have any ads. I think in the future, especially for free users, you're 100% are going to see ads inside of ChatGPT that'll be a huge component to their business. It's not there yet, but I think these kind of pop ups that we see are the precursors and the testing grounds for what those ads might look like.
B
Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I think at this point it's mutually beneficial because, you know, ChatGPT can be helpful and the more apps people can connect to ChatGPT, the more helpful they can get and more traffic they can get. But then also Peloton can now say, now we have a new AI bike or AI fitness tracking built in and they, you know, now they have more of a advantage as well. So right now it's mutually beneficial, I think. But down, down the road there's definitely, there's bound to be money involved.
C
So yeah, and OpenAI, I will say did have like a whole blog post back in October where they were showing how it, how it works to have all of these different app integrations embedded inside. And we can see like, I mean, basically if they're going to copy the same format that other big app players, AKA Apple have, have done on Apple, when you're searching for apps to use, as soon as you, you know, add this kind of search functionality and this discovery functionality, Apple does have like paid ads, like you can pay ads to have your app show up inside of the search results. So I think right now there's only a handful of apps that really work inside of ChatGPT. It's kind of hard to, to use it. I don't think it's super intuitive. They will like their GPT store, I think at some point have like discoverability and search and I think they're eventually they're going to get to a point where they have ads to promote what apps can be used inside of Chat GPT or maybe that's through partnerships where they, you know, ChatGPT is the default AI on Peloton bikes, for example. And then peloton gets thrown in here one way or another, I think there's going to. These will become ads or they'll be promoted partnerships and, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Right. If you're paying $200 a month, you better not see anything sponsored. But if you're on the free Tier, I think 100% chat GP is going to have ads rolled out and it's going to be some. It's going to be a massive search engine with, you know, six.
B
Right? Totally. Well, hey, if you got any value out of this episode or appreciated it, we would love a review or rating wherever you're listening. It really helps us out and helps us reach more people and we read every single one, so. And don't forget to check out our AI Hustle school community where we teach you how to grow your business and scale it and also make money on the side with AI. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
Podcast: AI Hustle: Make Money from AI and ChatGPT, Midjourney, NVIDIA, Anthropic, OpenAI
Episode: ChatGPT Ads: The Future of AI Monetization?
Hosts: Jaeden Schafer & Jamie McCauley
Date: December 13, 2025
This episode dives into the recent controversy over emerging ads (or ad-like experiences) within ChatGPT, particularly concerning paid (Pro) users. Jaeden and Jamie unpack public reactions, OpenAI’s official response, and speculate about the future of AI monetization. They discuss the fine lines between "suggestions" and "ads" in AI platforms and what this shift could mean for users, businesses, and the future of AI-powered tools.
The episode provides a timely and nuanced look at the evolving monetization strategies for major AI platforms like ChatGPT. By balancing transparency, user expectations, and business reality, Jaeden and Jamie clarify that ads are likely in some form for free users. Their discussion underscores the importance of communication, relevance, and value in the user experience—especially as AI tools become further integrated into daily workflows and business models.