OpenAI's US ad pilot exceeds $100 million in annualized revenue in six weeks - Reuters
Six weeks after OpenAI launched its first advertising product, the company says the pilot has reached $100 million in annualized revenue. That figure comes from an OpenAI spokesperson and has not been independently verified. Reuters has reported the milestone but no ad industry measurement firm, auditor, or agency holding company has confirmed it independently.
What OpenAI has disclosed about its own pricing is limited. The Information, citing industry sources, has reported that OpenAI is asking advertisers to pay roughly $60 per 1,000 impressions, approximately three times the average Meta rate across its family of apps. OpenAI has not published its own pricing publicly. The Keyword, OpenAI's publication, has cited that reporting.
The second gap is what OpenAI has not made public. The company has not publicly disclosed whether its ad impressions carry MRC accreditation, whether third-party viewability verification is in place, or whether invalid traffic filtration is operating. These are baseline standards for digital ad platforms. OpenAI's public documentation describes its measurement as impressions and clicks only. What measurement infrastructure the company has built or contracted is not publicly known.
Criteo, OpenAI's first ad-tech partner confirmed via a company press release in March 2026, provides programmatic capability. The pilot has been extended past March, reported by Adweek and The Information. The minimum advertiser commitment of $200,000, also reported by Adweek and The Information, places the product squarely in brand-budget territory.
The pilot is moving into a next phase and expanding beyond the U.S., OpenAI said on March 26. Whether advertising becomes a meaningful revenue stream for the company remains an open question. What is clear is the current setup: a company selling access to a differentiated attention environment at prices trade publications report as significantly above market, against a measurement disclosure record that leaves material questions unanswered. The $100M figure is an early signal. What it signals depends on whether agencies find the trade acceptable.