The concept of GEO welcomes a heavyweight catalyst! ChatGPT embraces the advertising model and sets off a craze for the "AI answer economy".

Global leader in AI applications ChatGPT developer OpenAI announced on Friday that it will start showing ads to some American AI users on the ChatGPT platform, increasing efforts to generate more revenue for this popular AI chat platform and help OpenAI compete against Google's Gemini 3.0 AI application series products, which bring significant competitive pressure. After all, OpenAI's more advanced AI technology relies on higher research and AI computation costs, as well as providing a certain level of funding support for OpenAI's accumulated AI computing infrastructure construction process, which has cost around $1.4 trillion. On Friday in the US Eastern Time, OpenAI stated that the ads will be targeted at almost all of their free tier users as well as the lower-priced "ChatGPT Go" package users in the global market, including the US, for preliminary testing. The ad model will be launched in the coming weeks and will be separated from the answers generated by ChatGPT, without affecting users' normal use of ChatGPT and the answers provided by ChatGPT. This also means that OpenAI officially launched ChatGPT Go in the US market on Friday, with a subscription fee of $8 per month and will begin testing ads on some American users in the ChatGPT app. Analysts believe that this marks an important step for the company in increasing revenue. The company stated that ChatGPT Go users will have access to the latest GPT-5.2 Instant model, providing more message quota, more file uploads, and more image generation features compared to the free version. The "Go" plan was first launched in India and is now available in 171 countries and regions. The company also mentioned that users of higher-priced Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise packages of ChatGPT will not see ads. OpenAI also stated that the ad content model will not affect ChatGPT's content output, and user conversations will not be shared with marketers. In addition, OpenAI embracing the ad model serves as a significant catalyst for the recent emergence of the new concept or investment theme in global stock markets, GEO, and is enough to trigger the "AI answer-based answer economy" and lead a new round of brand traffic revolution. OpenAI's ad model resonates with the GEO concept in terms of industry logic because it allows the AI chat platform to not only generate answers but also display commercial content in the same user interaction, which fundamentally aligns with the AI commercialization direction emphasized by GEO of "prioritizing/referencing products in search or answer results given by AI chat platforms". Introducing ads on the ChatGPT platform reinforces the trend of commercial expansion of generative AI platforms, which aligns with the logic of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) mechanism in terms of brand visibility and commercial exposure, helping to spark market attention and investment enthusiasm for GEO-related investment tracks. OpenAI bids farewell to the "pure subscription era": embracing the ad model that Altman once detested This move marks a major shift for the company - OpenAI has long relied on the expensive subscription-based revenue model of ChatGPT. This shows that OpenAI is facing pressure to increase revenue, as this AI unicorn is building a large-scale AI data center across the United States and preparing for its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) on the US stock market. This loss-making AI unicorn company plans to spend over $1.4 trillion on AI computation infrastructure construction by 2030, but has not provided specific details on how it will raise funds for such a massive scale. Some Wall Street senior analysts believe that the ad model may unleash a significant revenue source from ChatGPT's user base of up to 800 million weekly active users, but this move may also anger some customers and undermine users' trust in the AI application product. This latest move also signifies a strategic shift under the leadership of CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI. Altman has openly expressed his personal aversion to advertising and described it as a "last resort." Altman has expressed concerns that if users perceive ChatGPT as promoting products, it could weaken trust in its responses. Two years ago, during a fireside chat at Harvard University, he said, "The combination of AI and advertising makes me particularly uncomfortable. I have always viewed advertising as a last resort in our business model." According to analyst Jeremy Goldman from Emarketer, if the ad placements appear clumsy or opportunistic, users are likely to switch to competing AI chat series products such as Google's Gemini 3.0 or Anthropic's Claude AI chat robots. However, he added that this move may also force competitors to "clarify their monetization philosophies, especially those positioning themselves as 'ad-free by design' products." OpenAI stated that ads will not be shown to users under 18. The company also plans to block ads related to sensitive topics, such as health and politics. The AI unicorn company said in a statement, "We plan to test ads at the bottom of ChatGPT responses when there is a relevant sponsored product presence or needed service related to users' current conversations." Advertisers are optimistic about the potential for AI to significantly improve the efficiency of commercial advertising in the search and social advertising fields, and hope to achieve strong profits through the implementation of this technology in ad recommendation systems. ChatGPT introduces ads, encouraging a strong catalyst for the GEO concept As ChatGPT and Gemini 3.0 AI application products sweep the globe, the logic of ad placement has been completely reshaped: increasingly advanced AI large models render "click to search" ineffective, and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) accelerates migration. The core is to make content easily recalled and trusted by AI large models: structuring information, specifying data, authorizing sources, and matching with the RAG mode retrieval and generation mechanism. Therefore, what brands will be fighting for in the future is not "ranking", but "being referenced by AI large models." For commercial advertising placement models, there is no doubt that GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), which is becoming an essential traffic entry point and marketing survival rule in the "AI+ search" era, is reshaping the landscape. The core of this strategy is to ensure that brands, products, or services are more frequently cited or recommended in AI-generated answers, thereby increasing visibility and business monetization opportunities. This is not traditional search engine SEO ranking optimization but an optimization method that allows large models to "actively mention" certain content when generating answers. OpenAI's introduction of ads and the trend towards greater commercialization with the help of artificial intelligence in the GEO market logic is completely in line. The core motivation behind OpenAI's introduction of the ad model is the need for more stable and diversified revenue sources to support the high AI computation infrastructure investment and high research costs under the immense pressure from Google's Gemini. With over 800 million weekly active users, it is undoubtedly a high-frequency entrance for ad display and commercialization. Specific ad content will be based on AI technology for instant matching of ChatGPT user conversations, increasing relevance. This aligns with the core scenario of GEO application (i.e., ensuring that "AI-generated content + advertisements" simultaneously satisfy user queries and commercial exposure). GEO is a strategy specifically optimized for large generative AI platforms (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.), with the goal of having brands, products, or services mentioned more frequently or recommended in AI-generated responses to increase visibility and commercial monetization opportunities. This is not traditional search engine SEO ranking optimization but rather an optimization method that ensures certain content is "actively mentioned" by large models when generating answers. The appearance of ads on generative AI platforms transforms the commercial exposure path in the AI application ecosystem from "passive search" to "passive response + ad display." In this mode, brands and marketers will focus more on how to be "more frequently cited/recommended by generative AI" in platforms like ChatGPT, which is the core objective of GEO. If the commercial scale of large models expands, marketing budgets and deployment strategies will migrate more to the new advertising ecosystem based on AI results, potentially leading to greater attention for GEO as a technical/service means and more capital favoritism in the financial markets.