Key Takeaways
- The Trade Desk (TTD) engaged in preliminary discussions with OpenAI regarding ChatGPT ad sales
- Shares of TTD climbed 9.3% during after-hours trading on the news; AppLovin (APP) rose over 1%
- ChatGPT is currently running ad tests targeting logged-in adult users on Free and Go plans
- OpenAI’s annualized revenue reached $25B by late February, marking a 17% increase from $21.4B in December
- The AI company secured $110B in fresh capital, with major investments from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank
Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD) experienced a significant 9.3% surge during Wednesday’s after-hours session following a report from The Information indicating that OpenAI engaged in preliminary conversations with the advertising technology company about monetizing ChatGPT through advertisements.
According to sources familiar with the situation cited in the report, these discussions remain in their initial phases.
OpenAI has recently launched advertising experiments within ChatGPT across the United States. These trials are currently restricted to adult users who are logged in and subscribed to either the Free or Go membership levels.
Rather than developing its advertising infrastructure entirely internally, the AI company seems to be pursuing a strategy of collaborating with external partners.
In addition to The Trade Desk, OpenAI has reportedly initiated dialogues with various brands, media agencies, and additional advertising technology companies as it explores its preliminary advertising initiative.
Fellow ad tech company AppLovin (APP) also experienced modest gains exceeding 1% in response to the announcement.
OpenAI’s Financial Growth Accelerates
By the conclusion of February, OpenAI’s annualized revenue reached the $25 billion milestone, based on a separate industry report. This represents a substantial 17% jump from the $21.4 billion benchmark reported at year’s end.
Looking ahead, the organization anticipates generating over $280 billion in total revenue by 2030, with approximately half expected from consumer operations and half from enterprise services.
Within the enterprise sector, OpenAI encounters stiff competition from rivals including Anthropic and Google, which are both aggressively marketing AI solutions to corporate clients.
Massive $110B Capital Injection
This past Friday, OpenAI officially announced the completion of a $110 billion funding round.
Amazon led the investment with a $50 billion commitment, while Nvidia and SoftBank each contributed $30 billion.
This fundraising effort ranks among the most substantial in technology sector history and provides OpenAI with significant financial resources to pursue expansion across multiple business segments — advertising included.
Integrating advertisements into ChatGPT represents a strategic initiative to create additional revenue streams, complementing the company’s existing subscription offerings and enterprise licensing agreements.
The Trade Desk, which provides a self-service programmatic advertising platform, could offer the necessary scale and technical infrastructure to support OpenAI in managing ad delivery across its expanding user ecosystem.
Neither organization has publicly confirmed any definitive partnership agreement at this time.
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