For a long time, chatbots offered various subscription tiers that guaranteed access to better language models, faster performance, and support for more complex tasks. Yet even in free plans — unlike traditional search engines — ads were rarely visible, which users greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, it now appears that this era is coming to an end.
According to forum discussions, some users noticed that despite having an active subscription — even the $200-per-month plan — they are receiving “prompts” to install apps, such as suggestions for fitness apps, in ways unrelated to the topic of their conversation. Dozens of comments on the thread expressed similar frustration: “So glad I canceled,” “in 6 months people are going to be canceling their subs en masse,” “immediately cancelled,” and “good thing I just canceled my subscription.” As seen, the introduction of advertising-like features has triggered a wave of dissatisfaction, with many arguing that a paid subscription should guarantee freedom from any form of advertising.
OpenAI, however, insists that these “app suggestions” are not ads in the traditional sense. According to a company representative, the appearance of recommendations like Peloton does not involve any financial transaction — it is supposedly part of an “app discovery” feature rather than paid advertising. Still, the company acknowledged that both the format and the random, sometimes irrelevant context in which these suggestions appeared were problematic — highlighting a blurry line between usefulness and potential monetization abuse.
This discussion also reflects a broader reality. Operational costs for AI services — including infrastructure, servers, and model development — are enormous. Many reports indicate that under such conditions, the introduction of advertising or commercial integrations may become almost unavoidable if services are to remain broadly accessible. That raises the possibility that what started as “app suggestions” may eventually evolve into more aggressive monetization.
User response — especially from paying customers — is a major warning sign for OpenAI. If the platform begins to resemble a typical ad-heavy application, it could undermine its advantage over traditional search engines and rival AI assistants.
