Promoting might grow to be a $25 billion enterprise for OpenAI — and pose a risk to Google, in response to new estimates on Monday from a prime tech analyst.
Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney sees the startup producing that degree of annual advert income by 2030 if it executes nicely on rolling out this new enterprise.
OpenAI mentioned on Friday that free and Go customers of ChatGPT would begin seeing adverts “within the coming weeks.” OpenAI additionally laid out its advertising ideas, similar to clearly labeling them and never sharing consumer conversations with advertisers.
“A path to producing a number of billion {dollars} in advert income in 2026, going to $25B+ by 2030, appears cheap,” Mahaney wrote in a be aware to traders.
That is based mostly on the seemingly scale of ChatGPT by that point, the confirmed monetization of high-intent efficiency advertising platforms, and the present measurement of this market, the analyst added.
OpenAI’s income is rising quick already. CFO Sarah Friar mentioned in a latest weblog submit that the startup’s annualized income topped $20 billion in 2025, up from $2 billion in 2023. Nonetheless, there are massive query marks over OpenAI’s losses and whether or not it may grow to be worthwhile sooner or later.
Promoting may very well be a technique for OpenAI to spice up its prime and backside traces.
Mahaney famous that Google’s Search and YouTube companies seemingly generated near $300 billion in advert income in 2025, with Meta producing an extra $180 billion. These are extremely worthwhile operations, with working revenue margins of 40%, in response to the analyst.
ChatGPT has nearly 1 billion weekly common customers, a lot of whom share useful particulars with the chatbot, similar to what they need and want. Advertisers are prepared to pay up for entry to this treasure trove. That is the kind of intent-based info that varieties the spine of the large digital advert companies run by Google and Meta.
OpenAI has mentioned that preliminary take a look at adverts will seem on the backside of ChatGPT answers and be related to the consumer’s dialog with the chatbot. That method may not be too intrusive for customers, whereas nonetheless being enticing to advertisers, Mahaney mentioned.
“OpenAI’s transfer instantly challenges this core income stream by providing another, extremely participating platform for customers to find services and products,” Mahaney wrote. “If ChatGPT can efficiently combine adverts which can be useful somewhat than intrusive, it might siphon off useful business queries that historically go to Google.”
The analyst additionally warned that if OpenAI can develop a “conversational” advert format, the place customers analysis and talk about potential purchases inside ChatGPT, that would immediate advertisers to shift a few of their advertising budgets as a result of that is “high-intent engagement.”
Even when ChatGPT goes all-in on adverts, although, do not count on the chatbot to take Google’s share of the market in a single day, Mahaney added.
OpenAI will nonetheless must compete with the tech ecosystem that Google has spent years creating, similar to its Chrome web browser, in addition to internet customers’ behavior of Googling stuff once they want a solution, Mahaney wrote.
