OpenAI is reportedly projected to generate around $2.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2026. Internal projections shared with investors outline an aggressive scale-up, with ad revenue expected to jump to $11 billion in 2027, $25 billion in 2028, and $53 billion in 2029, before reaching $100 billion annually by 2030, reports Axios. This growth is largely driven by the assumption that its products could expand to about 2.75 billion weekly users globally.
Notably, the Sam Altman-led company has already begun testing ads inside ChatGPT for free and lower-tier users. Recent reports suggest that early pilots have crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within weeks while attracting over 600 advertisers. Such projections place the ChatGPT maker on a path to potentially compete with dominant digital advertising companies like Google and Meta, both of which took years to build their ad ecosystems. However, OpenAI’s strategy is based on a fundamentally different user interaction model – conversational AI rather than search queries or social feeds.
The latest projection also comes as the AI company is opening up its platform to a wider group of advertisers. And to support this, OpenAI has partnered with ad-tech firms like Criteo, which help with audience targeting, campaign delivery, and tracking performance. Early signs suggest that brands are being asked to spend heavily from the start, with initial campaign budgets typically ranging between $50,000 and $100,000. Advertisers are also being encouraged to submit different types of ad creatives so the system can test and optimize what works best.
But at the same time, these efforts become even more important as early advertisers are reportedly facing challenges with ChatGPT ads. Earlier reports highlight that measuring results remains difficult, with brands struggling to prove effectiveness due to limited data and the lack of standardised measurement tools. Because ads are delivered based on conversation context rather than at a fixed scale, the available data tends to be inconsistent, making it harder to accurately track reach, engagement, and overall return on investment.
OpenAI’s ambitions are also expanding, while the digital advertising market is already dominated by a few big players. For example, Google made almost $300 billion from ads in 2025, while Meta earned close to $200 billion, clearly showing the scale of dominance OpenAI is attempting to challenge.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
