OpenAI is ready to target free users of its services with advertisements around the web, based on what it knows about them.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, OpenAI sent an email to users laying out major changes to the AI company\u2019s privacy policy in the US. \u201cWe\u2019ll now use cookies to promote OpenAI products and services on other websites,\u201d reads the email sent on April 30. \u201cThis does not impact your conversations in ChatGPT. Your conversations with ChatGPT are private and are not shared with marketing partners.\u201d Cookies store information in users\u2019 browsers as they explore the web.<\/p>\n
Chats with the bot aren\u2019t shared with third parties. Even so, details OpenAI collects as users interact with its services may soon be used to market those same services, like ChatGPT, outside the platform. This appears to be targeted at converting free users (WIRED found that marketing settings were \u201con\u201d by default) and seeing how effective its ads are at conversions.<\/p>\n
The move comes as OpenAI looks to expand its own advertising network inside ChatGPT. The company started rolling out ads at the bottom of ChatGPT outputs for US users in February. Competitors including Google are exploring how ads can be woven into the user experience of generative AI tools and features.<\/p>\n
“Nothing about our policy of not sharing people\u2019s conversations or other private user content with advertisers has changed,\u201d says OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson. \u201cLike many companies, OpenAI works with select marketing partners to help people learn about our products on third-party websites and apps, and we updated our privacy policy to clarify how this works. We do not share your conversations with these marketing partners. To make OpenAI marketing efforts more relevant and measure their effectiveness, we may share limited identifiers, such as cookie IDs or device IDs, and users can opt out at any time in settings.”<\/p>\n
To help you better understand what recently changed, WIRED compared the new privacy policy to a previous version saved from OpenAI\u2019s website earlier this month. The biggest change revolves around how your data is shared for marketing purposes.<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/69f5017dc2feaf82cfb1e624\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Screenshot%25202026-05-01%2520at%252012.36.14%25E2%2580%25AFPM.png\"\/)
<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\nCourtesy of Reece Rogers<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n In the Disclosure of Personal Data section, OpenAI expanded the paragraph detailing how it discloses personal data. OpenAI now says it may share \u201climited information\u201d with partners to promote services like ChatGPT and Codex off of OpenAI\u2019s platforms.<\/p>\n The company details this change in a new help page. It says it might send identifiers, such as users\u2019 email addresses or cookie IDs, to advertising platforms. That way, OpenAI can check whether users have taken specific actions\u2014like signing up for its Codex tool after they get shown an ad for it on Instagram.<\/p>\n Users can opt out of this kind of tracking by going to Settings > Data Controls > Marketing Privacy<\/strong> in the ChatGPT app. WIRED tested two free accounts and found that those settings were on by default. The two paying accounts WIRED checked, one Plus and the other Enterprise, did not have it on by default.<\/p>\n Old Privacy Policy<\/p>\n We disclose your Personal Data in the following circumstances:<\/em><\/p>\n Vendors and Service Providers: To assist us in meeting business operations needs and to perform certain services and functions, we disclose Personal Data to vendors and service providers, including providers of hosting services, customer service vendors, cloud services, content delivery services, support and safety services, email communication software, web analytics services, payment and transaction processors, search and shopping providers, marketing service providers, and information technology providers. We also work with service providers who help us with age and identity verification, and you can learn more here\u2060. Based on our instructions, these parties will access, process, or store Personal Data only in the course of performing their duties to us.<\/em><\/p>\n New Privacy Policy<\/p>\n We disclose your Personal Data in the following circumstances:<\/em><\/p>\n Vendors, Service Providers, and Marketing Partners: To assist us in meeting business operations needs and to perform certain services and functions, we disclose Personal Data to vendors, service providers, and marketing partners, including providers of hosting services, customer service vendors, cloud services, content delivery services, support and safety services, email communication software, web analytics services, payment and transaction processors, search and shopping providers, and information technology providers. We also work with service providers who help us with age and identity verification, and you can learn more here\u2060\u2060. When we work with Service Providers, these parties will access, process, or store Personal Data based on our instructions and only in the course of performing their duties to us. We also share limited information with select marketing partners who are not service providers in order to promote our products and services on third-party properties and help us assess the effectiveness of those efforts. Some of these partners may receive information through cookies and similar technologies. Learn more about these practices and the choices available to you here\u2060.<\/em><\/p>\n OpenAI categorizes many different types of information as a user\u2019s \u201cPersonal Data,\u201d including birth dates, payment information, and any prompts a user might have written. In its privacy policies, it doesn\u2019t explain which types of this data it considers \u201csensitive,\u201d but OpenAI does promise that it doesn\u2019t use this information to infer characteristics about consumers.<\/p>\n A sentence regarding \u201csensitive Personal Data\u201d was briefly absent from the Privacy Policy on Friday as WIRED accessed the updated document. When WIRED reached out to OpenAI for comment, the company claimed this removal was an error and added a similar sentence back, in a different paragraph.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nData Usage Now Includes Third-Party Promotions<\/h2>\n
Assurance About \u2018Sensitive Personal Data\u2019 Removed in Error<\/h2>\n