ACCESS OpenAI's Fidji Simo on why ads are coming to ChatGPT
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Feb 11, 2026 
Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI and former leader at Facebook and Instacart, discusses ChatGPT's next chapter. She explains why ads are being introduced and how they will be kept separate from model outputs. The conversation covers the move from reactive chatbot to proactive assistant, concerns about emotional attachment to AI, and new products like Sora and ChatGPT Health.
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Let Users Steer Their Feed
- Let users steer personalization and expand adjacent interests rather than purely optimizing for engagement.
- Use conversational steerability to surface and test new themes with explicit user feedback.
Ads Will Likely Stay A Minority Revenue Source
- Ads are expected to remain a minority revenue stream because B2B and subscriptions will dominate long-term.
- That mix lets OpenAI avoid optimizing the product purely for ad engagement metrics.
Sora Drives Rapid Creation
- Sora nailed creative generation: users create many videos quickly and share in small groups.
- The challenge is converting creation into a sustained consumption-creation feedback loop.