ChatGPT is the fastest growing AI product in software history with more than 700 million weekly users, becoming the center of attention not only because of its technological power but also because of its development strategy and ways of making money.
In a recent interview with The Verge, Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT at OpenAI, shared many perspectives on the platform's journey, from the business model to advertising prospects.
Turley said that users' commitment to ChatGPT is stronger than expected, especially after the launch of GPT 5. Previously, GPT-4o received great attention to the point that when OpenAI stopped deploying, the community reacted strongly, forcing the company to restore it.
This has forced OpenAI to reconsider its plan to gradually eliminate old models, instead maintaining them in parallel to meet the diverse needs of users.
Regarding revenue, Mr. Turley affirmed that the current registration model is still an important pillar. Initially, OpenAI only deployed a paid plan to control demand when the server was overloaded.
However, over time, this form has proven to be more effective than expected. Mr. Turley revealed that the newly registered user group is even more active and engaged than the pioneer group.
Not only that, the business segment also grew impressively with the number of paying customers increasing from three million to five million in just a few months.
Mr. Turley believes that bringing ChatGPT to the working environment is a potential long-term growth opportunity.
When asked whether ChatGPT will display ads or not, Mr. Turley was cautious and said that he would not rule out this possibility in the future, but he also emphasized that all forms of advertising if they had to preserve the core values of ChatGPT include: providing objective, personalized answers and maintaining user trust.
We will only consider it if it does not reduce the quality of the experience and is still in line with the users goals, said Mr. Turley.
E-commerce is also a field OpenAI is testing. ChatGPT can now suggest products, and the company is researching a revenue sharing model from transactions, similar to the Wirecutter product introduction platform.
However, Turley emphasized that the focus is still on user experience: Exploration must be truly useful and engaging before it becomes a business activity.
Notably, Turley also revealed that ChatGPT could go beyond the current chatbot framework. In the future, this product can be integrated more deeply into productivity tools, workflows, and open up completely new money-making models.
Turley's shares reflect OpenAI's development philosophy of being cautious but constantly testing and balancing business expansion and maintaining the unique value of AI.
While advertising is uncertain, OpenAI is clearly looking to make ChatGPT both a usefulness and a long-term sustainable platform.
