WSJ Tech News Briefing · Friday, September 18, 2026
OpenAI's advertising revenue is deemed highly important for its impending public debut, especially to offset the substantial costs of its free ChatGPT service, which serves over a billion weekly users. The success of the ad business is therefore seen as a key factor in the company's financial strategy.
“The stakes are huge. It needs money to offset the costs of its free version of the service. They now have over a billion weekly users. And so taking advantage of this consumer popularity they have across the board, advertising is the one area that they can do that with.”