{"text":[[{"start":9.4,"text":"OpenAI is making its debut at the world’s top advertising event, pitching its nascent ChatGPT ad business and Codex programming tool to marketers and agencies this week as part of efforts to build a new multibillion-dollar business before its listing. "}],[{"start":25.65,"text":"The lossmaking AI group is presenting at the annual Cannes Lions advertising conference in the south of France for the first time, occupying a swish villa along the harbour from established adtech rivals such as Google and Meta. "}],[{"start":39.849999999999994,"text":"Talking at the event, Dave Dugan, the former Meta executive who now leads OpenAI’s global advertising team, said the AI company was bringing “something brand new to the market” as it attempts to challenge Google’s dominance in search ads. "}],[{"start":54.099999999999994,"text":"OpenAI is preparing a radical overhaul of ChatGPT and refocusing on winning corporate customers to take on Anthropic, which overtook it as the world’s most valuable private AI company last month. Both companies filed paperwork for an initial public offering this month and are expected to list later this year at valuations exceeding $1tn. "}],[{"start":76.14999999999999,"text":"Despite the plan to expand ChatGPT’s coding capabilities to court paying professional users, Dugan told the FT that OpenAI is “totally committed to ads”, as it looks for new ways to generate revenue from the hundreds of millions of people who use its app for free. "}],[{"start":93.39999999999999,"text":"“We’ve been very clear that this is our intention to be in this space ongoing,” he said. “The revenue that we make from the ads offering is going to subsidise and grow access to information.”"}],[{"start":105.39999999999999,"text":"OpenAI spent $34bn last year, the FT reported last week, with rising costs outstripping revenues. It has been slowly expanding its ads platform since its launch in February, offering ads in seven markets so far. "}],[{"start":120.1,"text":"OpenAI has told investors that it could grow advertising into a $100bn business by 2030, according to advertising executives, though the company has not publicly disclosed any such target. OpenAI declined to comment on the figure, which was first reported by Axios. "}],[{"start":136.29999999999998,"text":"Some top advertising executives were sceptical about the ability of OpenAI to reach such revenues in just four years, with one saying that the company would need to come up with more sophisticated ways to attract brands."}],[{"start":148.89999999999998,"text":"After OpenAI first announced that it would introduce ads in ChatGPT in January, Anthropic took out a series of Super Bowl ads parodying as intrusive the plan to put ads inside chatbot conversations. OpenAI has insisted that ads subsidise broader access to information, with chief executive Sam Altman slamming Claude as an “expensive product” for “rich people”. "}],[{"start":172.09999999999997,"text":"Ads are only being shown to people using ChatGPT’s free or Go service, which costs $8 a month. OpenAI says that its chatbot’s responses are unaffected by advertising, which is labelled as sponsored and appear below regular answers. "}],[{"start":186.74999999999997,"text":"The San Francisco-based company also used Cannes to show off its Codex product, which is able to write code and create software based on simple instructions from users. It showed brands in Cannes how Codex can be used to code apps that help users create their own advertising campaigns, although company executives played down any ambitions to replace the traditional work carried out by advertising agencies."}],[{"start":210.59999999999997,"text":"OpenAI’s Cannes push comes after Google said last month it would introduce more ads in its “AI mode” search results, including “highlighted answers” to queries. Google does not currently show ads in its Gemini chatbot app. "}],[{"start":225.94999999999996,"text":"OpenAI is taking a page from Google’s search playbook as it woos advertisers for an ad format that is still to prove its value and effectiveness. Its pitch is that ads in ChatGPT can put advertisers’ products in front of consumers when they are already looking to buy something. "}],[{"start":243.84999999999997,"text":"About a fifth of the queries for ChatGPT have a “direct commercial intent”, Dugan said, with ads for travel, retail, health and beauty and financial services products performing best so far. "}],[{"start":255.54999999999995,"text":"OpenAI has also launched a self-serve platform in the US and other English-speaking markets allowing small and medium-sized businesses to use the platform. "}],[{"start":265.19999999999993,"text":"“We’re starting with a very methodical rollout as we pick markets that meet certain criteria,” Dugan said. “We are still very early in this today.”"}],[{"start":280.44999999999993,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782200675_5882.mp3"}