Google, the company that literally invented the modern ad-supported internet, just promised not to put ads in Gemini. Meanwhile, OpenAI—the "nonprofit" that was supposed to be different—is rolling out advertisements to ChatGPT users.

Let that irony sink in.

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, told reporters that Google "does not plan to put ads in Gemini," at least for the foreseeable future. He seemed genuinely surprised that OpenAI moved to monetize through advertising "so early," suggesting that "maybe they feel they need to make more revenue."

Translation: OpenAI is burning cash and needs to find money somewhere.

ChatGPT's new ads target free users and those paying $8/month for the Go subscription. Premium tiers—Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise—remain ad-free. The ads appear at the bottom of responses and feature "sponsored products or services relevant to the conversation." You can dismiss them and provide feedback, which is corporate-speak for "we'll track whether you clicked."

To OpenAI's credit, they're not showing ads when you're discussing "health, mental health, or politics." That's a low bar, but at least they cleared it.

Here's what's actually happening: OpenAI has a revenue problem. Training frontier models costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Their partnership with Microsoft is reportedly strained. Their nonprofit-to-for-profit restructuring is messy. And subscriptions alone can't cover the compute bills.

Google, meanwhile, already makes $200 billion a year from ads. They don't need to monetize Gemini this way. They can afford to let it be a loss leader that keeps people in the Google ecosystem. They're playing a different game.

The real question is where the money goes. If ads subsidize free access for students and researchers who can't afford subscriptions, that's defensible. If they're covering OpenAI's burn rate while Sam Altman pitches investors on $7 trillion data centers, that's a different story.

I've built products. I know revenue matters. But remember when OpenAI's pitch was that they'd be mission-driven and different from profit-maximizing companies? The "open" in OpenAI feels more ironic every month.

Google being the good guy on ads wasn't on my 2026 bingo card. But here we are.