ChatGPT Rolls Out Ads: What You Need to Know

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1:22Try Greenlight risk-free today at greenlight.com slash try greenlight. That's greenlight.com slash try greenlight. Welcome to the podcast. Today on the show, we are talking about ChatGPT rolling out ads. Now, there's a lot that goes into this story. On the one hand, I think a lot of people are complaining about having ads in ChatGPT. On the other hand, there is a lot of drama between Anthropic and OpenAI in relation to all of this. and I also think for people interested in AI side hustles, there is a massive opportunity if you can be one of the first people to get ads into ChatGPT. So we're going to talk about where it's at, how you can, you know, if you can get ads into it, what ChatGPT is saying about it, kind of the whole state of this situation.

2:06But before we do, Jamie, do you want to tell them about our school community? Yeah, if you haven't heard about it yet, you should definitely check it out. Our school community called AI Hustle, we'll link it below. It is an amazing place to get resources and learn how to actually make money online using AI tools, grow your business. We're doing a really interesting series right now on vibe coding and all the different ways you can make money with that. Redesigning websites that are SEO and AI search crawlable. you know today I did we did an episode and I showed you how I can have been turning still images on websites into motion video to just increase their visual appeal lots of tons of different categories and things we talk about we have about 300 members right now and it's$19 a month so if you join today you can lock that price in it's a really great value we feel and And a really great place to also network with like-minded people.

3:05So check that out. But let's talk about ChatGPT's ads. I have yet to see an actual ad on ChatGPT, but that could be because I'm a Plus member. Jaden, have you seen any yet so far? So you won't see them unless you're on the free tier. Or the thing that I think is the most shady, if you're on the Go plan. So you're still paying$8 a month for the Go plan. um you're also getting ads which i don't know in my opinion i'm like maybe like lower your rate usage but if i'm paying you money i don't want to see any ads i think they're trying to do some sort of like hybrid model where like netflix they have some of their like cheaper tiers but they also still have ads um baked in and so yeah so unless you're free or go um you're not gonna see the ads so i'm on the 20 bucks a month i'm not gonna see the ads um but they otherwise they're going to be on there.

3:55Yeah. I mean, I think to me, that makes sense. I guess like you compared it to Netflix where you have like a mid tier that's, you know, some ads, but yeah, I would be interested to see what the benefits are of going with the go plan compared to the free plan, because it doesn't seem like there's much incentive now. But so people have been criticizing this saying it's the end of AI. You know, how can you trust AI now with all these baked in ads? But OpenAI has made it clear that they're going to identify these. If you look at a screenshot, it clearly identifies where there's ads. So now they are going to relate to what you're searching about, but it isn't like they're trying to deceive you by putting little links in the text.

4:46So does that make sense? I think people are confused at what this actually means. I don't think it means that we're going to lose the trust in our AI search queries. But, Jaden, what do you think about it? Yeah, so inside of their blog post, I think one thing that they did try to give some clarity on is they said, ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you, and we keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers. Our goal is for ads to support broader access to more powerful GPT features while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT for important and personal tasks. I mean, so basically, it's not like, hey, you know, what's the best way to wash my car for cheap?

5:25And then it's not like the response is going to be like, you should wash your car with Spiffy's Auto Car Cleaner. Like, it's not going to be the ads. It's not going to be the response itself that puts the ad. There's going to be a separate section below with products related to that. And so, like, you might get, you know, an ad for Spiffy's Auto Cleaner or whatever at the bottom of your chat thing. but it's going to be clearly separate from the actual response that the AI model gives you. And I think that's important. Like you mentioned, it's not like there's going to be links inside of it or, you know, it's like all of a sudden the responses it gives you are going to be completely changed.

6:01And I think the reason why some people are confused about that comes down to Anthropic. Well, no, it's not because of Anthropic. I mean, basically, if you say there's going to be ads in chat, it's people's assumption. There's a really funny Super Bowl ad that Anthropic put out, if you guys haven't seen it, poking fun at OpenAI. And in it, so there's a few different ones, but one of the ones that I saw was there was like this guy and he's like doing a pull-up. And he, you know, it's really hard for him to do a pull-up. And then he like, there's a, you know, personal trainer beside him. And he's like, hey, how do we get a six pack really fast?

6:35The personal trainer is like, you know, the chat GPT in this Anthropic ad. And he's like, hello, great question. Get a six pack very fast. We can do this. How, like, tell me your information. the guy like says is like height and weight and stuff and he's like great you can do this with a workout plan we can build for you but before we do that more importantly you should get the super boost ultra shoes to make short kings stand tall and he's like what and he's like get these shoes now 20 discount okay so anthropic is making it seem like the response you're getting from the ai model is is gonna have like the ai ad baked in really it's gonna be at the bottom um it was pretty funny and i don't know if you did you see uh sam altman's response to those ads on i didn't see his response but i did see the ad i thought it was i thought it was pretty funny yeah it's pretty funny um if you go to if you go to twitter sam altman had a like a response to it and in it he was like he's like haha those ads were funny i actually laughed and and in my personal opinion that's basically where he should have stopped his tweet and then we would all just moved on with our life like whatever you're just pokey fine then he goes on this long long long long long essay like an entire essay below that about how anthropic is authoritarian and how he's like saving the world with the only like open ai model and how that they're deceiving everybody by i'm like dude bro come on you're the you're the open source that turned into a closed source for profit non-profit to for-profit company like spare me all your moral superiority but like anyways so So I think a lot of people had the same reaction to that.

8:09Ads are funny. Come on, just admit the ads are funny. And yeah, it's kind of funny. Yeah. Well, I mean, like you got to think about all the investment that OpenAI has made infrastructure wise, development wise, they have to turn a product. They have to start making money somehow. And this is a quick answer. You know, you do have your subscription fees, like an API access, all that kind of stuff that they can make some money out. but ads I feel like are, especially for the free users who are not necessarily using this for business use, but just personal use. I feel like ads are, it's an easy way for them to start generating money, which they desperately need to do.

8:47So it does say some of these topics like health, politics, or mental health will not have ads, which is good. And also people under 18 won't see ads. So, um, you know, that's all, that's all well and good, but I do think, you know, they're trying their best to make it something that doesn't ruin the app. So, uh, I think, you know, I would do the same thing if I was in their situation. Yeah. A hundred percent. So one other thing that I will also bring up, um, in, in how this all goes is this. So like all of the kind of backlash from having ads altogether, of course, people are going to complain of course people are going to say no don't put ads in i mean especially a lot of the free users that have had kind of this free experience forever and maybe they're rate limited or something but they got chat gpt for free they're going to be like no we don't want ads um but what but what happened is all of this backlash actually started last year they were testing some app suggestions and they basically kind of looked like ads at the bottom so there's this tweet that went viral um where they were like chad gpt has started posting ads on pro accounts.

9:52I hope this is just a testing or a mistake. Sam, don't do it. The ad is completely unrelated to the chat. So basically like, you know, every complaint in the world, I think a lot of people were posting about this. And then he got a response from OpenAI on this specific post. And this was back in December. So OpenAI said, thanks for flagging this. 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 He makes it a bad, confusing experience. We're iterating on suggestions and trying to make sure they're awesome, whatever. Okay, so it kind of seemed like, oh my gosh, they're doing this thing and then opening eyes like, don't worry, we're not really doing it.

10:29And then they're like, okay, actually we are doing it. Here's the ads and they rolled it out. So it's kind of funny. They slowly lead us along and then they put the ads in here. Now at the end of the day, like you mentioned, I would do the same thing. They have to make money from this and be curious to see if Anthropic doesn't have ads forever, which is kind of seems like the position that they're taking. And it's funny because Sam Altman like commenting on that in his whole, you know, Anthropic is evil kind of post. He was like, Anthropic makes expensive AI for rich people. We're trying to like save the world, whatever, with our cheap AI, which I thought was kind of funny because I think that there's free components to Anthropic as well.

11:10But in any case, it is true that the average Anthropic user is paying a lot more money. Like their kind of like core base isn't just these$20 a month people either. It's like$200 a month developers trying to like use cloud code is kind of the big thing. So, I mean, saying they're making it for rich people, I guess you could say developers, but like, I don't know. It's just like a business use case. It's like a very specific, like, you know, career use case. Anyways, it's kind of funny. I love all the drama between these different companies. If you go over to TechCrunch, I have an whole article and this is what they said about it.

11:46They said, well, understandable. Critics fear that ads could influence the chat GPT's answers. OpenAI denies this in their announcement, saying that the ads will be optimized based on what's most useful to you. The company says they will also be clearly labeled as sponsored or separated from the organic content. In tests, OpenAI has tried matching ads to users based on the subject of their conversation, past chats, and previous ad interactions. For instance, users searching recipes might see ads for grocery delivery services or meal kits. OpenAI said advertisers won't have access to user data.

12:19Only aggregated information about ad performance like views and clicks. I think that's another thing people are concerned about and I'm happy they're clarifying. Like, yeah, I don't want them sending Peloton all of my health data from my OpenAI health section, right? Like, I think a lot of people will be concerned about that. So they're segmenting it. I mean, they're going to let you see the views and clicks as an advertiser. and that brings me to the final point of this episode which is if you can get to be one of the very first advertisers on this program how much it's going to cost and kind of what the opportunity is here jamie for you is this something that you feel like you would want to get on right away or you'd kind of sit back and wait to see how it all plays out before as an advertiser you'd want on the platform i mean i would if i had the budget i would get on it right away because i feel like right now when there's not as much competition and people don't know about it as much yet, your ad price is going to be way cheaper.

13:11So your cost of getting a customer is going to be negligible compared to what it will be in the future. So similar to when Facebook ads rolled out or Instagram, they all start off cheap because it's a supply and demand thing. So the more demand you have for people wanting to run ads, the more expensive the placement gets. So they're cheapest right now, but I think you probably have to be a special company to at least at this point, run ads. But for any small business, I would keep your eye open to see when they start allowing for smaller people to run ads or smaller budgets, then I would jump right on it.

13:47I mean, would you agree with that? Yes. So here's what I've read so far, and I don't have an exact number. I apologize. So don't kill me if I'm misquoting this because I saw this on X somewhere and I was just looking up, couldn't find it. But there's two things. Number one, they're not letting everyone on. there's not like a widespread platform right now. They have a select amount of advertisers that they're piloting, quote unquote, testing. And even in their blog post, if you go look at their blog post, it's literally labeled testing ads in ChatGPT. Ads that support free access and don't change ChatGPT's answers.

14:20Like they're really trying to like say this is a test. So it's not guaranteed that this is something they're going to roll forward. Is it going to be? Yeah, 100%. They're not, once they start making money from this, they're not pulling back. What they're doing is they're not testing the ads. They're testing the backlash. They're testing if everyone revolts and leaves their platform. So I don't think it's, and then label it like a test. But if no one gets mad, it's here to stay. Like it's a way to make money. Okay. So they're testing out with different advertisers and a handful. So it's a closed group of people.

14:47And I think they want to make sure it's just really high quality and not like anyone's going to do anything spammy. And the other thing that I did see was that the way they're pricing this is it's actually a premium offering. They're not, it's not like, you know, Google or Facebook ads when those first launch, you get pennies on the, you know, for pennies, you could get clicks. Apparently, they're doing something like$20 for 1 ,000 views of your ad or like kind of a high price. So it is fairly premium for digital advertising. And the way that they justify it is they're like, well, like you're able to advertise to people that are like specifically searching for very specific things.

15:20You get like really good insights. And more than just a Google search where someone might be searching for something specific and clicking, it's like you can see the whole chat history technically could be helping narrow down. target your specific product. So they're pricing this as premium. I'll be interested to see what the ROI is on the companies. At the end of the day, am I going to test it 100 %? I'm getting on there and testing it as soon as it's available. But I will say, I don't know if it's going to be kind of this like ad renaissance like we saw with Google or Facebook being super cheap back in the day.

15:51But anyways, it's going to be interesting. Thanks everyone for tuning into the podcast today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to go and check out the AI Hustle School community, guys. We would love to have you as a member. It's$19 a month. We share this week some incredible tips about businesses that we are starting and doing and how we're making money with AI, all the tools, workflows, how you can grow and scale your business and career with AI. Go check it out. Link in the description. We'll catch you guys all in the next episode. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog.

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