OpenAI is weighing the introduction of advertising to ChatGPT as it searches for additional revenue streams beyond subscriptions, Vice-President and Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley said in an interview published by The Verge on 14 August. Turley stressed that any commercial messages would have to be implemented "very thoughtful[ly] and tasteful[ly]" so as not to compromise the personal nature of the service. ChatGPT has amassed about 700 million weekly users and more than 20 million paying subscribers, according to Turley. While those numbers have underpinned rapid sales growth, running large language models remains expensive and the company is exploring commerce links and other monetisation options alongside ads. Turley’s comments follow a rocky debut of GPT-5 last week, which prompted user backlash over the removal of the earlier GPT-4o model. OpenAI has since restored GPT-4o for paying customers and is reviewing how it retires future models. The executive said usage metrics remain "very positive" despite the episode.