ChatGPT will display ads in France as of the end of the month

Just two years ago, Sam Altman was still considering advertising among the last-resort options for his company. The last resort has evidently sounded. In a message addressed to its European users, OpenAI confirms that advertising is coming to ChatGPT at the end of the month, a shift made official by an email sent to the users concerned, as well as by the new European privacy policy published on August 14.

The document, as dry as it is informative, details the planned mechanics for the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

Refusing targeting will not save you from ads

The system relies on a two-tier setup, designed to tick the GDPR boxes. To display personalized ads, OpenAI will request explicit consent from users of the Free and Go plans. Those who refuse will still see ads, but generic ones, this time based on the legal basis of legitimate interest. The setup resembles motorway tolling: without a toll tag, you still get through, just via the slow lane.

In practice, targeting may draw on the context of the ongoing conversation, the history of previous exchanges, and past interactions with ads, depending on the account settings. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers are entirely exempt (advertising remains limited to the Free and Go plans, including the paid Go plan, which is rather amusing). Ad controls will appear in the settings, with consent that can be revoked at any time.

The CNIL will watch the game from the stands

On the governance front, the adopted framework shifts the focus of the matter.The data controller for the EEA and Switzerland remains OpenAI Ireland Limited, based in Dublin. Under the GDPR one-stop-shop mechanism, the Irish data protection authority will therefore inherit the role of lead authority for ChatGPT advertising. The CNIL will retain a say in the European loop, without calling the shots. Those familiar with the Meta and Google cases will recognize the setup.

Tested in the United States since February, the ads were officially rolled out on August 11 to the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea. The European Union comes last, by force of the GDPR (the rules will at least have slowed things down). On pricing, the first ad slots were reportedly negotiated at around $60 per thousand impressions, roughly triple the average prices observed at Meta, before being revised downward.

The practical question remains: what to do at the end of August? Open the settings, opt out of personalization if you feel like it, and accept the idea that free access, on this scale, would eventually have to pay for itself, despite what other labs such as Anthropic argue. Purists will retain the option of paying to regain a one-on-one, witness-free interaction. Privacy is becoming a premium service—the times have a feel for the phrase.

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Source: OpenAI