# OpenAI sees chat intent and memory as a basis for ads

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/openai-sees-chat-intent-and-memory-as-a-basis-for-ads/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Sarah Friar](https://realalpha.app/builders/sarah-friar/) · Sarah Friar is CFO of OpenAI. · Leads OpenAI's finance as CFO; previously oversaw Square's 2015 IPO and helped take Nextdoor public as CEO.
- Host: [Chamath Palihapitiya](https://realalpha.app/people/chamath-palihapitiya/) · Founder & CEO, Social Capital · Led Facebook's growth team; his firm backed Slack and AI chipmaker Groq.
- Host: [Jason Calacanis](https://realalpha.app/people/jason-calacanis/) · Founder & CEO, LAUNCH · Early Uber angel; sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL; hosts This Week in Startups.
- Host: [David Sacks](https://realalpha.app/people/david-sacks/) · Co-founder & partner, Craft Ventures · PayPal's first COO, founded Yammer; White House AI & crypto czar 2025–26.
- Host: [David Friedberg](https://realalpha.app/people/david-friedberg/) · CEO, Ohalo · Founded The Climate Corporation, sold to Monsanto for about $1.1B in 2013.
- Show: All-In
- Episode: [OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar: IPO, AI Rivalries, New Device, and Spending $100B+ on Compute](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/), Jun 2, 2026
- Moment: 29:09 to 31:43 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/openai-sees-chat-intent-and-memory-as-a-basis-for-ads/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1749

## Quote

> “So imagine putting **memory and context next to intent**. You should have a very potent ad platform”
> — [Sarah Friar](https://realalpha.app/builders/sarah-friar/) at [30:50](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1850) · All-In

## Takeaways

1. OpenAI says sponsored content should not change model results.
2. Friar says users will have an ad-free tier.
3. She sees chat intent and memory as valuable ad-targeting signals.

## About this segment

Sarah Friar says ads must not influence model results and that OpenAI will keep an ad-free tier. She argues that conversational intent combined with memory could make a potent ad platform.

From “OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar: IPO, AI Rivalries, New Device, and Spending $100B+ on Compute”, Jun 2, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[29:12](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1752) Three greatest consumer businesses of our lifetime. iPhone, Meta, Advertising Network, and Google's Advertising Network. Two of those three are ad-based, and even Apple has a sprinkling of ad ads. I haven't heard you talk about ads much. People tell me they're seeing some ads in the experiment, in the free version. What is your commitment to the ad version? You guys got a little trolled by Anthropik during the Super Bowl.

[29:37](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1777) Oh, you're going to have ads. But is ads the solution to making this free for the world? Yeah. So first of all, on the ad front, we want to stick by our principles. We want to make sure that you know you're always getting the best result based on the model, not by something that was sponsored. So that has to hold true. And I think the second thing is that we'll always provide a free, a tier, sorry, an ad-free tier for people that just don't want ads.

[30:02](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1802) But with that said, if you took, Fiji says this really well, if Google and Meta had a baby, it would be ChatGPT. Because what you have in Google search, and by the way, we know we have at least 11% of the search market. It's a lot more because, actually, when you do a Google search and the page refreshes, that counts as one. In ChatGPT, when you do a whole conversation where you might ask 50 questions, that also counts as one.

[30:29](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1829) So, in reality, we have a much higher portion, very high intent. That is great for advertisers because I'm effectively telling you what I'm doing, right? I want really cool shoes to sit on the stage. I'm telling you what I want to go buy. In Meta's case, right, they use this, like, people like you sort of intent. so they have the demographic. We have more than that because we have memory, right? I just told you, it knows who I am.

[30:52](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1852) So imagine putting memory and context next to intent. You should have a very potent ad platform, which gives you an ability to offer up massive access to the world writ large, because now you can pay for it. And I think back to a question you asked, Freeberg, if you look at the revenue per token right now, if I was optimizing only for today, I would give every token to the API, every token to the API, order of magnitude more than to the consumer. However, I told you we're playing our own game. We have a strategy where we believe there's an AI infrastructure layer, a utility like electricity, and in a future state, you'll want to be able to serve the world writ large. Consumers, small businesses, large enterprises, governments. That's our strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, the CFO of OpenAI, Sarah Friar.

[31:42](https://realalpha.app/v/TjrShuj_Zsg/?t=1902) Well done. Fabulous.