OpenAI rolling out advertising inside free-tier ChatGPT conversations is more than just an experiment in AI monetization. A commercial message appearing inside a space many users had come to treat as neutral, or at least not explicitly paid for by corporations, has opened a door to the endless ads so central to the rest of the internet.
No matter how careful the product design and deployment, ads in ChatGPT were going to land with a thud for some users. Something about ads in ChatGPT feels intrusive, like a group chat that suddenly had a sponsored post from one of its members.
