Chatbot

Google doesn’t want ads in Gemini

co-written by newsrooms.ai22. January 2026, 11:35

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Google’s AI assistant Gemini will remain ad-free. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirmed this in an interview with Alex Heath in Davos. “The company has no plans whatsoever to bring ads into Gemini.” The statement comes at a strategically opportune moment – because competitor OpenAI plans to introduce ads in ChatGPT shortly.

According to heise, Hassabis justifies the decision with the trust factor: “If you want a truly universal assistant that you can trust, that’s tailored to you personally and knows a lot about you, then you want to be sure that the recommendations it gives you are really good for you, unbiased and unvarnished.” Google is focused on developing the best assistant at all levels – without commercial distortion from ads.

OpenAI launches ads starting February

The contrast with OpenAI could hardly be starker. Starting in February, ads are planned in the free ChatGPT version and the affordable ChatGPT Go subscription model for the USA (read more). Hassabis comments on the competitor’s move: “Perhaps they feel they need to generate more revenue.”

For Google, the position is not entirely new. The company had previously stated it would keep Gemini ad-free. However, rumors recently circulated that Google had changed its plans. Hassabis now clears up these speculations.

Cross-subsidization through established ad business

Google enjoys a decisive advantage: the company primarily makes its money from ads in search and other services. AI development is essentially cross-subsidized – Gemini doesn’t need to generate revenue on its own. Advertising remains where it has long been, while the in-house chatbot can be kept free from it.

Meta pursues a similar strategy. Mark Zuckerberg can finance the AI division thanks to ad revenue from Facebook and Instagram. Whether Meta AI and Gemini will truly remain ad-free in the long term, or whether the temptation will eventually become too great, remains to be seen. For now, though, both Google and Meta draw a clear line between their established ad platforms and their new AI assistants.