OpenAI Searching for Ad Chief to Bolster Monetization

OpenAI is reportedly seeking someone to help carry out its monetization plans.

Fidji Simo, the artificial intelligence (AI) startup’s new CEO of applications, has been meeting with candidates for this role, per a report Wednesday (Sept. 24) by the tech industry-focused news site Sources.

This new executive would oversee a team responsible for bringing ads to ChatGPT, and handle all monetization endeavors at OpenAI, including subscriptions, the report said.

While talks are ongoing, Sources added, the successful applicant would report directly to Simo, who recently began at OpenAI after serving as Instacart’s chief executive. PYMNTS has contacted OpenAI for comment but has not yet received a reply.

A separate report Wednesday from Ad Week cites a recent job listing that shows OpenAI wants to hire a “Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer” to build in-house tools for ad platform integration, campaign management, and real-time attribution.

This role, the report added, is part of a new “ChatGPT Growth team,” and charged with “building the technical infrastructure behind OpenAI’s paid marketing platform.”

Though OpenAI has said it was exploring ways to incorporate ads, the report added, the company has no on-platform capabilities. AdWeek describes the job listing as a rare sign of the company’s plans for an in-house marketing platform integrated with ChatGPT.

These reports came one day after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman used his personal blog to discuss his vision for AI, calling for it to become as universal as electricity. He also said delivering it at scale will require industrial-level infrastructure fueled by massive investment.

“Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week,” Altman wrote.

“The execution of this will be extremely difficult; it will take us years to get to this milestone and it will require innovation at every level of the stack, from chips to power to building to robotics. But we have been hard at work on this and believe it is possible.”

This vision comes as OpenAI’s business is expanding rapidly. As PYMNTS reported, the company doubled its annual revenue to $12 billion in 2025, reflecting demand from enterprises and consumers for its generative AI products.

At the same time, OpenAI forecasts that spending will jump to $115 billion through 2029, “underscoring the capital-intensive path it has chosen,” PYMNTS wrote Wednesday.

The blog post also followed a series of landmark agreements aimed at expanding OpenAI’s capacity. As PYMNTS reported, Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI starting next year, the largest private-company investment on record. OpenAI will in turn purchase millions of Nvidia’s processors.