This move, reported by IBTimes UK, signals that CEO Sam Altman and the OpenAI leadership are prioritising product quality over immediate monetisation. The focus is now urgently shifting to refining and improving ChatGPT's core AI technology, which has faced recent scrutiny over its performance & the huge competition its facing from Gemini.

Key Takeaways:

• The Freeze: All plans for search ads, AI agents, and other advertising programmes are temporarily halted.

• The Reason: A commitment to sharpening the core AI (the foundation of the platform) to ensure a high-quality user experience before rolling out commercial features.

• The Future: While delayed, the eventual launch of advertising is expected to be highly impactful, potentially forcing users to choose between keeping the personalised "memory" feature or disabling it to avoid highly targeted ads.

This temporary halt suggests that when OpenAI does launch its ad platform, it will be built on a significantly stronger foundation.

We will keep you in the know as we find out more…