rewrite this title Use ChatGPT? Ads might appear for you soon – but here's a sly trick to avoid them

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

ZDNET’s key takeaways

Code in a beta version of the ChatGPT Android app hints at adsOpenAI hasn’t officially commented on the inclusion of adsiPhone users do have a workaround to avoid ads

The days of ad-free ChatGPT might soon be over, as it appears OpenAI is inching closer toward including advertisements in its popular AI model.

Diving into the code of a recent beta version of the ChatGPT app for Android (version 1.2025.32), a user spotted language that seems to indicate ads might be on the way. In several strings of code that reference “openai.feature.ads,” verbiage like “search ad,” “search ads carousel,” and “ad target” appears.

Also: Is ChatGPT Plus still worth $20? How it compares to the Free and Pro plans

This isn’t entirely a surprise. In the first episode of the OpenAI podcast earlier this year, company CEO Sam Altman expressed his thoughts on incorporating advertisements into his product. “I’m not totally against it,” he said, adding, “I can point to areas where I like ads.” He went on to explain that he thinks Instagram advertisements are “kinda cool,” but admitted that they’re difficult to get right.

This is a bit of a reversal from last year, when Altman said he “hated ads” during a talk at Harvard and said while he’s not “totally against” them on OpenAI products, he considers them “a last resort.”

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Perhaps not coincidentally, the potential inclusion of ads comes at a time when OpenAI’s revenue is coming under heavy criticism. According to a recent report in The Information, the company posted revenue of $4.3 billion in the first half of 2025, but still saw a net loss of $13.5 billion during that same timespan.

Also: How to use ChatGPT: A beginner’s guide to the most popular AI chatbot

It’s not clear yet how the potential ads on ChatGPT will appear. Will they show up on any query, or only for ones related to potential purchases, like if you ask for the most reliable model of dryer? As Altman has pointed out, if ads make their way into results, users will be left wondering who paid to influence those answers and could eventually trust the answers a little less.

OpenAI hasn’t officially commented on the inclusion of ads, but if things have progressed to the point that code in the app hints at ads, it’s probably not far off.

How to use ChatGPT without ads

At least for now, there is a small workaround to use ChatGPT without ads. 

A little more than a year ago, Apple partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to its suite of products, including iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS. As several online reports have pointed out, this integration does not use requests for model training or advertisements if used without a ChatGPT account. 

Also: I let ChatGPT Atlas do my Walmart shopping for me – here’s how the AI browser agent did

In theory, this means that if you use ChatGPT through Siri (by asking a question Siri can’t handle), you’ll get access to ad-free ChatGPT.

I’ve reached out to OpenAI for comment.