Leak: OpenAI plans to include ads within ChatGPT
A recent leak suggests that OpenAI is taking the first steps to incorporate advertising within ChatGPT, starting with formats directly linked to search responses. The finding was made by Tibor Blaho, an engineer at AIPRMcorp, who detected references to an ad system in the latest ChatGPT beta for Android (version 1.2025.3200).
In the analyzed code, Blaho found terms such as “ads feature”, “search ads”, and “bazaar content”, as well as structures pointing to future advertising formats: targeting hooks, “shopping”-style sponsored cards, and an ad carousel. The developer shared images of the code on X (formerly Twitter), where they were quickly replicated on Reddit and other platforms.
The leak suggests that OpenAI is considering integrating promotions directly within ChatGPT’s search-style responses, which would represent a model similar to Google Search Ads or the integrations Microsoft already uses in Copilot.
Blaho noted on X: “My hypothesis is that ads will appear in search results, recommendations, and purchase-related responses, like a product marketplace; not in every normal conversation.”
This strategy would bring ChatGPT closer to the commercial approach already followed by Google with AI Overviews and the ads integrated in Gemini, as well as Perplexity, which shows sponsored questions alongside its answers.
OpenAI had already hinted at plans to test advertising
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, had mentioned months ago that the company would explore incorporating ads “carefully.” This is the first concrete technical evidence that this project is already underway.
The current scale of ChatGPT reinforces the commercial interest:
- 800 million weekly users by the end of 2025 (figure confirmed by Altman).
- Trillions of prompts processed daily.
- ChatGPT ranks among the fastest-growing sites in history, surpassing the initial adoption rates of social networks like Instagram or TikTok.
- According to SimilarWeb, ChatGPT exceeds 2 billion monthly visits, consistently remaining among the 20 most visited sites worldwide.
- Microsoft reported that the use of Copilot and GPT-4o in Bing generated a record increase in generative AI queries, consolidating a progressive migration of users from traditional engines to conversational assistants.
With audiences of this magnitude and accelerated changes in search habits — where information is no longer consulted only on Google, but within ChatGPT and other assistants — the eventual arrival of ads could directly impact marketers, advertisers, and affiliates, who will need to adapt their strategies to this new conversational visibility environment.
While OpenAI has not made official comments about the leak, the technical evidence indicates that advertising monetization within ChatGPT is only a matter of time.
What does this mean for betting companies? A new multimillion-dollar advertising scenario
The possible opening of advertising spaces within ChatGPT could completely transform the digital strategy of betting companies. Globally, the gaming and sports betting industry invests more than US$ 12 billion annually in digital advertising, according to data from H2 Gambling Capital and iGaming Business, with sustained growth driven by markets such as the US, UK, Brazil, and India.
If OpenAI enables targeted ads in searches, recommendations, and real-time responses, operators could access, for the first time, a channel with direct, contextual interaction based on the user’s expressed intent, something impossible in traditional search models. With millions of queries related to sports predictions, odds, statistics, and betting recommendations already made daily in ChatGPT, the iGaming sector could become one of the first and most active advertisers in the ecosystem, opening a new front for acquisition and positioning for operators, providers, and affiliates.
Tags: iGaming, ChatGPT Betting, ChatGPT advertising, ChatGPT betting advertising