By Yazhou Sun, Bloomberg
One of OpenAI’s top executives defended the company’s addition of ads to its popular chatbot ChatGPT as a way to democratize access to artificial intelligence.
The company needs to “create a strong business model,” to achieve its goal of bringing AI to the wider population, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.
“Our mission is AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for the benefit of humanity who can pay,” she said. AGI refers to artificial general intelligence, a theoretical future version of the technology that matches or exceeds human capabilities.
OpenAI announced last week it would test targeted ads in the free version of ChatGPT for some US users. Up until now, the chatbot has either been free or available for a monthly subscription fee.
OpenAI’s decision to introduce ads is a watershed moment for the sector, which faces steep costs for computing power, staffing and upcoming infrastructure buildouts. The firm’s executives are under pressure to justify its ambitious strategy, as well as its valuation, among the highest of any private company globally. Earlier this week, the company said its annualized revenue — a metric used by software companies to indicate growth — grew to $20 billion in 2025.
Speaking at Davos the day before, Demis Hassabis, the chief executive officer of rival Google DeepMind, said it was “interesting they’ve gone for that so early,” according to journalist Alex Heath.
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More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
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