Gemini Isn't Going to Run Ads (Ok, Sure)

ChatGPT has ads now. Google says Gemini won't. Anthropic bought a Super Bowl spot to make sure you knew Claude doesn't either. The business model question that everyone in AI avoided for three years just got very loud.

OpenAI officially began testing ads in ChatGPT on February 9, 2026, targeting free and $8/month "Go" tier users in the United States. The three companies are now on distinctly different paths: OpenAI is testing conversational ads at scale. Anthropic is marketing its refusal to run them. Google is running ads in AI Overviews but holding off on its standalone Gemini assistant. Search Engine Journal

This isn't a footnote. It's a fork in the road for how AI gets funded — and who it ultimately serves.

The Economics Behind the Decision

OpenAI's pivot to advertising isn't a mystery. The company is burning $25 billion in 2026 alone and doesn't expect positive cash flow until 2030. Only 5% of ChatGPT's users pay for a subscription. Leanware

With hundreds of millions of free users and infrastructure costs that would make a utility company blink, the math was always pointing here.

Leaked internal financial models projected $1 billion in 2026 revenue from "free user monetization," and OpenAI quietly began hiring former ad-tech talent from Meta and Google. Workshop Digital

Sam Altman's public position evolved from calling ads in AI "extremely disturbing" to, by late 2025, acknowledging that "a lot of people want to use a lot of AI and don't want to pay."

The format, for now, is restrained: ads appear below responses, clearly labeled, matched to conversation context rather than search keywords. Sensitive topics — health, mental health, politics — are excluded. OpenAI says conversations remain private from advertisers and that ads do not influence answers. TechCrunch

Every one of those promises will be tested as the business scales.

Google's Careful Two-Step

Google's position is the most strategically complex. The company runs ads in AI Overviews within Google Search — that's not changing. But Demis Hassabis said he found it "interesting" that ChatGPT opted for ads so early, pointedly adding that "maybe they feel they need to make more revenue." Google's Ads VP Dan Taylor publicly denied plans for Gemini advertising twice in two months.

— once in December, once again in January — after reports circulated that Google had told advertisers to expect Gemini ads in 2026.

The denial is notable. Google's entire business runs on advertising. Keeping Gemini clean is a positioning move, not a permanent philosophy.

Anthropic Went to the Super Bowl With It

While OpenAI launched ads, Anthropic launched a Super Bowl campaign in February 2026 with the tagline "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude," explicitly positioning itself as the ad-free alternative. 

That's not a subtle message. It's a direct conversion play aimed at the exact users who will see their first ChatGPT ad and feel something shift.

It also reframes the business model competition as a values competition — which is smart positioning for a company that built its identity around safety and user trust. Whether that trust premium holds at scale, especially as Anthropic pursues its own enterprise revenue and government contracts, is worth watching.

What This Means for Marketers

For anyone in marketing or growth, this development is genuinely significant on two levels. First, conversational advertising is a new channel with a fundamentally different intent signal. Search ads target keywords. ChatGPT ads target conversation context — what someone is actively thinking through right now. The brands that prepare early will have an advantage; those that wait for a fully mature ecosystem may find the premium real estate already claimed. Workshop Digital

Second, this changes vendor evaluation for AI tools in your marketing stack. The platform where your team does sensitive research, ideation, and strategy work now serves ads to free users. Whether that changes your tooling decisions is a legitimate question — and one worth answering deliberately rather than by default.

The AI industry's adolescence is over. The grown-up question — how does this actually make money — has arrived. Your growth strategy should have an answer ready.

Winsome Marketing helps businesses build AI-forward strategies with clear eyes on both capability and commercial reality. Let's talk.