{"paper":{"title":"The Beginning of ChatGPT Ads","arxiv_id":"2608.05008","primary_cat":"cs.CY","submitted_at":"2026-08-05T16:13:38+00:00","version_compiled":"v1"},"notice":"Every quoted sentence is the authors' text from the arXiv listing abstract. Labels and probabilities are the outputs of classifier-1.13.0 on the question bank abstract-p1-20260923, exactly as returned. No sentence in this record was written by a language model.","schema":"pith.compiled-record/v0","status":"compiled","abstract":{"source":"arXiv listing abstract v1","sentences":[{"i":0,"p":1.0,"id":"s0","own":true,"role":"contribution","text":"This paper presents the first empirical study of advertising content being rolled out in the user-facing online interfaces of large language models (LLMs).","hedge":{"p":1.0,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.83,"main_claim_p":0.04,"quantitative":false,"quantitative_p":0.2,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.0,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":1.0,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":1,"p":0.67,"id":"s1","own":true,"role":"method","text":"We systematically examine possible demographic differences in ad content shown to U.S. users of ChatGPT using a sock puppet audit methodology.","hedge":{"p":0.83,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.93,"main_claim_p":0.03,"quantitative":false,"quantitative_p":0.09,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.67,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":0.33,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":2,"p":1.0,"id":"s2","own":true,"role":"method","text":"We create and deploy 91 sock puppets in a 3x3 factorial design, using geolocation cues (account IP proxies and location-signaling prompts) to signal three racial/ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, and White) and three income terciles (low, medium, and high).","hedge":{"p":0.98,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.97,"main_claim_p":0.02,"quantitative":true,"quantitative_p":0.98,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":1.0,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":0.0,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":3,"p":1.0,"id":"s3","own":true,"role":"method","text":"We conduct data collection starting in February 2026, collecting over 3,000 advertisements from 186 unique advertisers in response to 335 prompts on a range of realistic user queries.","hedge":{"p":1.0,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.97,"main_claim_p":0.02,"quantitative":true,"quantitative_p":0.99,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":1.0,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":0.0,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":4,"p":1.0,"id":"s4","own":true,"role":"result","text":"We find that accounts begin receiving ads 14 days after account creation, and that lower-income accounts, regardless of race, are more likely to receive ads.","hedge":{"p":1.0,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.98,"main_claim_p":0.64,"quantitative":true,"quantitative_p":0.98,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.0,"result":1.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":0.0,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":5,"p":0.87,"id":"s5","own":true,"role":"result","text":"In this first phase of ChatGPT ads, the ads themselves skewed heavily towards consumer goods, directed users to a specific advertiser rather than a particular product, and were clearly separated from the LLM's response text, observations we anticipate will change as ads continue being integrated into LLM chat interfaces.","hedge":{"p":0.78,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.91,"main_claim_p":0.12,"quantitative":false,"quantitative_p":0.22,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.0,"result":0.87,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.0,"contribution":0.0,"interpretation":0.13}},{"i":6,"p":0.98,"id":"s6","own":true,"role":"contribution","text":"We release a public, searchable archive of all collected advertisements.","hedge":{"p":0.98,"label":"asserted"},"own_p":0.93,"main_claim_p":0.02,"quantitative":false,"quantitative_p":0.04,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.01,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":0.01,"contribution":0.98,"interpretation":0.0}},{"i":7,"p":1.0,"id":"s7","own":true,"role":"future_work","text":"Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings, and conclude with methodological and theoretical recommendations for future empirical studies of LLM advertisements.","hedge":{"p":0.54,"label":"unclear"},"own_p":0.51,"main_claim_p":0.06,"quantitative":false,"quantitative_p":0.03,"role_probabilities":{"gap":0.0,"method":0.0,"result":0.0,"background":0.0,"limitation":0.0,"future_work":1.0,"contribution":0.0,"interpretation":0.0}}]},"compiled":{"main_claim":{"p":0.97,"text":"We find that accounts begin receiving ads 14 days after account creation, and that lower-income accounts, regardless of race, are more likely to receive ads.","location":"abstract s4","hedge_strength":{"p":1.0,"label":"asserted"}},"provenance":{"route":{"via":"TypeSafe API","model":"classifier-1.13.0","endpoint":"https://api.typesafe.ai/v1/systemone","provider":"TypeSafe"},"packing":"one request per 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