OpenAI's finance chief just dropped some hints about how the company plans to make more money

• OpenAI's finance chief just put "licensing models" on the table.
• She said the company could take a share of downstream sales if a customer's product takes off.
• Her comments come as OpenAI prepares to test ads to help fund soaring compute costs.

OpenAI's chief financial officer is musing about new ways the company could make money beyond ChatGPT subscriptions.

In an episode of "The OpenAI Podcast" published Monday, Sarah Friar floated the idea of "licensing models," in which the company could take a share of downstream sales if a customer's product takes off.

"Let's say in drug discovery, if we licensed our technology, you have a breakthrough. The drug takes off, and we get a licensed portion of all its sales," Friar said.

"It's great alignment for us with our customer," she added.

Friar's comments offer a glimpse of how OpenAI is thinking about funding its compute-hungry ambitions as it broadens its business model.

Friar said OpenAI began with a single subscription after launching ChatGPT, but has since expanded to multiple price points, SaaS-style enterprise pricing, and credit-based pricing for customers who "want to pay more to get more."

As OpenAI looks at commerce and ads, Friar said the model should always give the best answer, not a sponsored one, and maintain an ad-free tier.

Last week, OpenAI announced it is preparing to test ads in ChatGPT, as the company seeks to boost revenue while facing spending commitments of about $1.4 trillion over the coming years.

The move marks a shift from the company's earlier stance. Less than two years ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described advertising as a "last resort."

"Ads plus AI is sort of uniquely unsettling to me," Altman said during an event at Harvard University in May 2024. "I kind of think of ads as a last resort for us for a business model."

Since then, Altman's tone has evolved alongside OpenAI's expansion and ballooning compute costs. In June, he said on OpenAI's podcast that he wasn't "totally against" advertising, but emphasized that it would need to be handled carefully.

OpenAI also completed its restructuring in October, shifting the company toward a more traditional for-profit structure — a change Altman said would make it easier to raise capital going forward.