While OpenAI has not specially started plugging ads into results delivered by ChatGPT, that doesn’t mean commercial entities are not injecting themselves into query results. We are on the customer of a generative AI ad onslaught.
In November 2025 OpenAI established a partnership with Target and it seems that that this has enabled Target to place “suggestions” into the responses from ChatGPT.
According to OpenAI:
With the Target app in ChatGPT, customers will be able to get personalized recommendations, add everything they need to a cart with multi-item baskets, and check out using Drive Up, Order Pickup, or shipping.
It seems that we are at the thin edge of the wedge for generative AI services introducing advertising.
And while OpenAI might not be injecting the ads themselves, in a similar way to how Google does this with search results, we are seeing commercial entities plug their services into ChatGPT.
AI will need a new commercial model
OpenAI and the other companies behind generative AI applications require significant amounts of money to power their infrastructure. Until now, most of the money they needed has come from investors. But that river of money is starting to dry up. That means they will be looking for new funding models beyond the subscriptions they currently offer.
Paying partners could access the data that people enter into the prompts. The vast trove of data they hold is valuable and could be used in ways that don’t compete with the generative AI providers.
This is why I think AI web browsers are a trojan horse, designed specifically to collect more data about us.
To put things in some context, it takes about 10 to 30 times as much energy to complete a generative AI query as it does to do a web search. An OpenAI subscription, if you’re a paying customer, starts at around USD$20 per month. A power user could conceivably cost OpenAI more than that.
This means generative AI services will be looking for ways to boost revenues. Increased subscription fees could result in reduced numbers of subscribers. That leaves two options: commercial partnerships and generative AI ads.
Social media could be the harbinger
This is not unlike what we saw when social media services were able to firstly garner large audiences and then looked for ways to monetise them. That resulted in a bombardment of ads.
Social media feeds are dominated by ads and sponsored posts rather than their friends and family.
Whether generative AI services rely on commercial partnerships rather than direct advertising, the result could be the same. End users will start seeing results that direct them to commercial entities that have paid for exposure.
The Target partnership is about “with a new Target app in ChatGPT and continued use of frontier models that help teams move faster and smarter, and deliver great guest experiences.”
If it sounds like and ad and smells like an ad…
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.