Although OpenAI maintains that there are currently no ads or ad trials active within ChatGPT, Chief Research Officer Mark Chen acknowledged that the company’s recent promotional messages “fell short of expectations” and emphasized ongoing efforts to enhance user experience. Chen and other OpenAI executives are responding to feedback from paying ChatGPT users who reported seeing promotional content from brands like Peloton and Target.

The company clarified that these promotions were part of a test aimed at showcasing applications built on the ChatGPT platform, and stressed that such recommendations—first introduced in October—contained no “monetary component.”

Separately, ChatGPT head Nick Turley addressed the growing confusion on Friday, stating, “I’ve seen a lot of misinformation circulating about ads in ChatGPT.”

“There is no live ad testing happening—you’re either looking at something that isn’t real or isn’t an ad,” Turley wrote. “If we ever pursue advertising, we’ll take a thoughtful approach. People trust ChatGPT, and everything we do will be designed to honor that trust.”

Earlier that same day, however, Chen offered a more apologetic response, recognizing that the backlash went beyond mere user confusion.

“I agree that anything resembling an ad must be handled with extreme care, and we clearly missed the mark,” he said. “We’ve turned off these recommendations while we work on improving the model’s precision. We’re also exploring better controls so you can reduce or disable these suggestions entirely if they aren’t useful to you.”