OpenAI’s Monetization Chief to Ad Partners: User Trust Means Some Things ‘We Just Can’t’ Do
By Google News AI ·
OpenAI’s head of monetization, Benji Shomair, said Monday that the AI lab is using trust as a guiding principle in developing its ads business, but acknowledged that this limits what it can provide to partners. OpenAI is eager to work closely with adtech and agency partners to scale its nascent ads operation, which started testing in February.
But the company is bound by its commitment to keeping users’ ChatGPT conversations private from advertisers and to never selling their data to advertisers, Shomair said onstage Monday at an event hosted by adtech-focused investment bank Luma Partners.
“There are places where our partners would like us to do certain things that we just can’t because of how we think about making decisions,” Shomair said.OpenAI is building its ads arm according to a hierarchy of priorities, Shomair said, that puts user trust above all else.
The second priority, he said, is user value, followed by advertiser value.He framed the development of the business as a necessary step in advancing OpenAI’s ultimate mission, to “ensure that AGI [artificial general intelligence] benefits all of humanity,” per the company’s website.
Ad-supported offerings, he said, mean that the many people without the means or interest in paying for a premium ad-free experience can still access powerful AI models. Notably, the executive, a former Meta vp, distanced himself from a widely circulated benchmark associated with OpenAI’s ads operation: the $100 billion figure.
The company projected that it would generate $2.5 billion in ad revenue this year and would reach $100 billion by 2030, according to an April report from Axios citing leaked investor presentation materials. That would equate to roughly half of Meta’s 2025 ad revenue (and, notably, Meta took 17 years to reach the $100 billion threshold).
Asked about the aggressive goal onstage by Luma Partners’ CEO Terence Kawaja, Shomair said: “We've actually made no statements about the direction of the business and where it's trying to go.” At Cannes Lions in June, the ad industry’s most prestigious annual event, OpenAI stayed mum on how much ad revenue it's generating.OpenAI, for now, is losing staggering sums.
The company brought in about $13 billion in revenue last year, up from $3.7 billion in 2024, according to 2025 financials obtained by writer Ed Zitron and verified by the Financial Times in June. Meanwhile, its operating loss was nearly $21 billion, and its net loss was $38.5 billion. OpenAI has reportedly raised its projected cash burn through 2030 by roughly $111 billion as it competes aggressively with its rivals.
Asked whether, in five years, OpenAI will have reinvented advertising or simply become another Google, Shomair said, "We will have created a new context for businesses and consumers to interact—one that's really valuable for consumers, helping them make decisions, and incredibly valuable for advertisers to participate in those decisions."
Originally published by Google News AI
