Evicted: OpenAI Boots Adobe Out of ChatGPT While Its Own Kingdom Shrinks

Adobe▲+1.42% — Adobe, up 1.42 percent today got a call this week it did not enjoy. OpenAIPVT$1.18T — OpenAI, private, latest valuation $1.18T has told advertising partners, Adobe among them, that they can no longer run ChatGPT ads for products that generate images or audio.¹ Adobe, which sells Firefly and now competes with its own landlord's models, was blindsided.

The numbers behind the eviction notice are the real story.

ChatGPT has 1.1 billion monthly users, still first, still 1.6 times Gemini's 662 million.⁷ But ChatGPT's share fell below 50% for the first time, at 46.4% in May, against Gemini's 27.7% and Claude's 10.3%.⁶

A young storefront, already crowded

The storefront is young. Ads reached the free and $8 Go tiers in February.² By May, 17% of daily users saw them, and software was the top ad category⁷, which is exactly the shelf Adobe just lost. OpenAI needs the money, having given investors aggressive revenue projections¹, while state attorneys general circle⁹.

The skepticism is not fringe

The skepticism is not fringe. Google DeepMind's chief said he was surprised at how fast OpenAI rushed ads into chat.¹⁰ Microsoft's▲+7.04% — Microsoft, up 7.04 percent today Satya Nadella warned that companies betting everything on one AI provider may not survive.¹¹ Sam Altman called Anthropic'sPVT$350B — Anthropic, private, latest valuation $350B Super Bowl mockery of chatbot ads dishonest and Anthropic itself an authoritarian company⁴, and the week closed with an Anthropic researcher resigning over the race to self-improving AI.¹²

What Adobe actually lost

Adobe did not need the cash. It booked $23.8 billion last fiscal year.⁸ It needed the shelf.

Every app store gates its own shelves, and this one will too.