OpenAI deletes ad network job listing as revenue targets face scrutiny

OpenAI posted a job listing describing plans to build a publisher-facing ad network, then deleted the references — a move that highlights the gap between its $100 billion revenue target and the early-stage reality of ChatGPT's advertising business.

"This is a huge sign that OpenAI is building toward an advertising business far beyond just ChatGPT," Debra Aho Williamson, founder of the AI-focused research firm Sonata Insights, said.

The job posting, first reported by CMO Insider, called for a "support delivery lead" whose responsibilities included "inventory setup, ad serving integrations, reporting, and yield-impacting issues" for publishers. After CMO Insider contacted OpenAI, the company edited or deleted five sentences referencing publisher-side work, later saying the role covers agencies and brands. OpenAI told CMO Insider it is not entering demand extension — the practice of extending advertiser demand to external websites — though analysts said the job description described exactly that model.

The episode comes as OpenAI faces mounting pressure to justify its private valuation and scale high-margin revenue ahead of a widely expected public offering. The company has projected $2.5 billion in ad revenue in 2026 and roughly $100 billion by 2030, according to reports from Axios and The Information. EMARKETER estimates the entire US chatbot advertising market will generate less than $1 billion this year and only $5.41 billion by 2030 — a 90% shortfall from OpenAI's five-year target.

The ad inventory bottleneck

OpenAI began selling ads on ChatGPT in February after years of resistance from Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, who said in 2024 that he "hates ads" and called the combination of AI and advertising "uniquely unsettling." The company's financial concerns won out, and under former applications chief Fidji Simo, OpenAI began exploring ad formats.

Advertisers who committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to early trials complained that demand outpaced available supply, with OpenAI slow to spend their budgets despite asking for hefty upfront commitments. Dave Dugan, OpenAI's head of global ad solutions, told Business Insider in June that ad delivery had improved as the company grew more confident in the ChatGPT user experience. Still, OpenAI only serves ads to users on free or lower-priced tiers in select regions, limiting its native ad inventory to the chat interface.

A publisher ad network would solve that bottleneck. By extending advertiser demand to external websites — similar to the Facebook Audience Network or Google Display Network — OpenAI could offer marketers more placements while giving publishers a cut of ad revenue. That model would also mark a shift in OpenAI's relationship with media companies, which currently do not receive a share of ChatGPT's ad revenue. Some publishers, including Axel Springer, have direct licensing deals for training data, while others — including the New York Times, Ziff Davis, and a coalition of local news outlets — are actively suing OpenAI for copyright infringement.

The revenue reality check

Nate Elliott, an analyst at EMARKETER, said OpenAI's $100 billion target is unrealistic. "We look at their numbers and the assumptions required to get there, and we don't see any of those assumptions as logical or reasonable," Elliott said. To hit that goal, OpenAI would need to dramatically grow its user base, charge top-tier ad rates, and fill ChatGPT with an "unbearably" high load of ads, he said.

Advertisers testing ChatGPT's platform describe it as rudimentary compared with Google and Meta's tools. Greg Hockenbrocht, chief executive of marketing startup Launch10, said his campaign got a far lower click-through rate than on Google ads, and the platform lacks features for generating ad copy and testing variants. "My own expectation was that given it was an ads platform launched by one of the leading foundation model companies, that the platform would be a little more, call it, 'AI-native,'" Hockenbrocht said.

OpenAI has been adding features quickly — cost-per-click bidding, conversion tracking, and geographic targeting within the US — but remains years behind the advertising infrastructure that Google and Meta have built over two decades. Dugan has pitched OpenAI's engineering speed as a competitive advantage, saying the company's engineers use its own Codex tool to build the ad product on a weekly release cycle.

For investors, the gap between OpenAI's revenue projections and market reality carries implications beyond the company itself. If OpenAI cannot scale advertising to the levels it has forecast, the company may need to lean more heavily on subscription revenue from ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Enterprise tiers, or push for higher API pricing — moves that could slow user growth. The ad network strategy, if pursued, would also put OpenAI in direct competition with Google and Meta for publisher relationships and advertiser budgets, a contest where both incumbents hold decades of data and infrastructure advantages.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.