1. According to who? Open AI?
2. Its current state is "basically free and containing no ads". I don't think this will remain true given that, as far as I know, the product is very much not making money.
The most recent leaked annualized revenue rate was $12bn/year. They're spending a lot more than that but convincing customers to hand over $12bn is still a very strong indicator of demand. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-hits-12-billi...
Given the rest of circular deals, I'd also scrutinize if it applies to the revenue. The entanglement with the Microsoft investments and the fact that "Open" "AI" is a private company makes that difficult to research.
[1] In a U.S. startup, I went through three CEOs and three HR apps, which mysteriously had to change for no reason but to accommodate the new CEO's friends and their startups.