Business 3 min read By Bethany Hadley
OpenAI launches advertising business on ChatGPT despite unresolved concerns
OpenAI has moved into advertising, according to a short Business Insider video, though the report does not detail what the problem is. The wider backdrop includes a disbanded robotics team, heavy quarterly losses and a planned funding round.
OpenAI has reportedly launched an advertising business, a move that matters because it would bring commercial messaging into ChatGPT, the chatbot that has become the company's most visible product. A short Business Insider video on the launch frames the step as carrying one significant problem, but the material available does not specify what that problem is, nor does it give details on ad revenue, a launch date or any advertiser names.
The advertising announcement lands against a difficult financial backdrop. Reporting cited in the same package says OpenAI lost around $10.9 billion in its most recent quarter. The company is reportedly preparing a funding round and a possible initial public offering in early 2027. Revenue from advertising is one obvious lever for a business with costs of that scale, but the sources do not quantify how much income it is expected to generate.
The financial pressure has also shaped internal decisions. Fortune reported in November that OpenAI had disbanded its stand-alone robotics team. Its researchers were moved into Mark Chen's research team, while hardware work went to Greg Brockman's Applied organisation. The company had earlier partnered with the robotics firm Figure in 2024, a collaboration that ended in February 2025. Chief executive Sam Altman has reportedly told staff to drop what he called « side quests », and the video generation tool Sora is among the efforts cut back.
Robotics has not been abandoned entirely. OpenAI is reported to be targeting a public demonstration of its own humanoid robot in 2027. Researchers cited in the package argue that general-purpose models such as the reported GPT-6 Astra can already control robots directly. An Nvidia study found an Astra-powered agent scored 74.8 per cent on a simulated manipulation benchmark, against 51.0 per cent for the best specialised robotic models on the same leaderboard. Experts quoted in the reporting nonetheless say specialised onboard models will still be needed where speed and offline operation matter.
Separately, a Microsoft 365 outage recently disrupted connections for both OpenAI and Anthropic, affecting access to Microsoft 365 through ChatGPT and Claude. Reports describe a workaround for users during the disruption. Taken together, the developments show a company weighing new revenue streams, trimming projects and preparing for capital-markets scrutiny, while the specific problem flagged around its advertising push remains unexplained in the available reporting.
Source: youtube.com
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