On August 31, OpenAI announced that ads in ChatGPT had reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate, in under 200 days. The announcement had a section heading I haven’t been able to stop rereading: “Where decisions take shape.”
Under it, OpenAI describes its users. “They explain what they want to accomplish, what matters to them, and the constraints they face.”
That is an accurate description of what I do in a chat window. It is also the pitch.
This is the second of three pieces about who gets to hide behind AI, and from whom. Part 1 was workers, taking tasks from an agent while whoever sent it stayed out of view. This one is users. The one out of view here is the platform. This piece is about the difference between two kinds of data, and what changes when the thing holding the second kind can talk.
What you did, and how you decided
Purchase data is a receipt. It says you bought hiking boots. It is valuable, and the ad industry has spent twenty years learning to squeeze it.
A chat is not a receipt. It is the deliberation before the receipt. The budget you said out loud. The knee you mentioned. The cheaper pair you almost chose, and the reason you didn’t. The trip in three weeks. The part you were unsure about.
Purchase data records what you did. Chat data records how you decided, before you acted. That is not more of the same data. It is a map of what moves you.
For most of the history of advertising, that map lived in your head. Now it lives on a server owned by a company with an ad business.
Two companies, two designs
Meta went first. It announced that from December 16, 2025, people’s interactions with its AI features would become a signal for the content and ads they see. Meta’s announcement put it plainly: “interactions with AIs will be another signal we use to improve people’s experience.” It covers text chats and voice. Meta says more than a billion people use Meta AI every month.
Christy Harris, a privacy policy manager at Meta, told Reuters: “People’s interactions simply are going to be another piece of the input that will inform the personalization of feeds and ads.” Fortune reported that users “won’t be able to opt out of such customization.” You can adjust what you see through Ad Preferences. You can stop using Meta AI. You can’t use it and keep the conversation out of the ad system.
OpenAI went second, and built it differently. Ads in ChatGPT started as a U.S. test on February 9, 2026, for adults on the Free and Go plans. Paid plans don’t see them. The ad sits below the answer, labeled as sponsored. OpenAI’s help page says ads are selected using “the context and intent of your current conversation,” and, when personalization is on, past chats and memory. OpenAI’s own example is gentle: if you’re researching recipes, “you may see ads for meal kits or grocery delivery.”
Since then it has moved fast. By August 31, OpenAI said ChatGPT ads were available in over 40 countries, used by “tens of thousands of advertisers,” with self-serve buying opening across India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The same announcement lists “custom audiences” among the targeting tools.
Where I had it wrong
I went in expecting to find that advertisers get your chats. They don’t. OpenAI says so in writing. Meta describes the chats as a signal for its own systems, not something handed to advertisers.
OpenAI’s help page is specific. “Advertisers never receive your chats, chat history, memories, name, email, precise location, IP address, or sensitive information.” Advertisers get aggregate numbers, like views and clicks.
So the confession doesn’t leave the building. It doesn’t have to. The advertiser rents the outcome. The platform keeps the map. That is the same shape as Part 1. The responsibility exists. It sits somewhere the person on the other end can’t see into. You see an ad. The advertiser sees a click. Only the platform sees why the two met.
The part that talks back
A billboard can’t answer your objection. A search ad can’t ask a follow-up question. That is the line this crosses.
The system that holds your deliberation is also a system that converses. It already knows which objection you raised last time. It is also where the ad is shown.
OpenAI’s help page says “Ads do not influence ChatGPT’s answers,” and that ads “run on separate systems from our chat model.” I take that at its word. It is a design choice, and a good one.
But look at what is already built next to it. The same help page describes messaging an advertiser through an ad, “to ask questions while making a purchase decision.” The August 31 announcement says the next phase will “explore new ways for businesses to interact with consumers in more native ways in ChatGPT.”
Targeting is choosing who sees the message. Persuasion is shaping the message to the person. A system that holds how you decide, and can talk, is built for the second one. The separation between the ad and the answer is the only thing between them. That separation is a policy. It can be audited, if anyone is allowed to audit it. It can also be revised.
The best case against me
It is a strong case, and parts of it are simply true.
Both companies fence off the most sensitive subjects. Meta: “When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.” OpenAI says ads are not eligible to appear near “personal health, mental health, or politics,” doesn’t show ads to accounts it identifies as under 18, and currently doesn’t allow political advertising.
OpenAI gives you real controls. You can turn off personalization, turn off past chats and memory for ads, see why you got an ad, and delete your ads data. You can pay for Plus or Pro. You can even pick a free tier with no ads and lower limits. Temporary Chats show no ads.
Regulation visibly works. Meta’s rollout skipped the European Union, the UK, and South Korea. OpenAI says personalized ads are “not initially available” in the European Economic Area or Switzerland. And on August 31, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, which means assessing and mitigating the risks of its systems, with compliance due by January 2027. Where the law is strong, the product is different. That is the best evidence in this piece that the outcome is a choice.
Here is where I land. The carve-outs prove regulation works. They also show you the default everywhere else. And they are per feature, per company, not a wall: on August 11, OpenAI launched ChatGPT ads in the UK and South Korea, two of the three places Meta held its chat-targeting back. The EEA and Switzerland are the only places OpenAI’s help page names as initially without personalized ads. The UK is not on that list.
The confessional test
Here is the scorecard, filled in as honestly as I can.
What you say stays with the listener — partial. Advertisers don’t receive your chats. The platform uses them.
Some subjects are off-limits — holds, mostly. Both companies exclude sensitive categories. The categories are theirs to define.
You can walk out — partial. OpenAI: yes, with real controls and paid or limited tiers. Meta: only by not using Meta AI, outside the EU, UK, and South Korea.
The listener has no stake in what you do next — fails. One of them passed a billion-dollar run rate in under 200 days.
The listener doesn’t speak for anyone else — holding, under pressure. Ads don’t shape answers, per OpenAI. Advertiser conversations and “more native” formats are already on the roadmap.
It is not a confessional with an ad server bolted to the door. Not yet. The one that is moving is the last line.
A disclosed aside
I draft with Claude, which is made by Anthropic. In February, Anthropic said Claude “will remain ad-free.” Its post argues that people “often share context and reveal more than they would in a search query.”
I agree with the argument. I would not build on the pledge. The same post says: “Should we need to revisit this approach, we’ll be transparent about our reasons for doing so.” That is honest. It is also the point. A pledge is a policy, not a structure. Every company in this piece has policies. The question is what holds when the revenue target moves.
What would change it
Four things, none exotic.
Treat decision data as sensitive. Health and politics are already off-limits for ads. How you reasoned your way to a choice should be too, by default.
Opt-in, everywhere. Past chats and memory feeding ad selection should be something you turn on, not something you find and turn off. Some places already get a stricter default. Make that the default.
Audit the wall. “Ads don’t influence answers” should be a claim an outside auditor checks, not a sentence on a help page. The EU has just put ChatGPT search under its rules for the largest platforms. The rest of us should get to read what it finds.
Show the signal. Every ad should say which conversation put it there. OpenAI’s “About this ad” is a start.
Those four are for the platforms, and for whoever regulates them. One decision is already yours if you run a company, and it is where Part 3 goes. If your people work through strategy, pricing, or a hard personnel call in a free chat window, that deliberation now lives in someone else’s ad system. The paid business plans don’t carry ads. Find out which one your company is on. Which tool your people use is your company’s choice, and that is one thing nobody can blame on the AI.
A receipt says what you bought. A chat says why, and what almost changed your mind. Only one of them can answer you back.
Next: Part 3, employers. The ones who put the AI to work, and the one place the blame can’t be hidden.