Before diving into protocol architecture, it’s worth understanding the financial asymmetry driving these moves. This isn’t a fair fight—it’s a $265 billion incumbent defending its empire against a fast-growing challenger burning cash to build an alternative.
Alphabet’s 2024 results reveal a company whose advertising business remains not just healthy but accelerating:
Through Q3 2025, Google advertising hit $74.2B quarterly (up from $65.9B in Q3 2024)
Search alone generating $56.6B
Google Services operating income reached $121.3B in 2024—pure profit from the advertising machine
But there’s a warning signal buried in the monetization metrics: Google Network impressions fell 11% year-over-year even as cost-per-impression rose 10%. This suggests advertisers are paying more for fewer impressions—a sign that traffic is migrating away from traditional display inventory toward AI-powered surfaces.
OpenAI: The Cash-Burning Challenger
OpenAI’s financial picture tells a different story—explosive growth funded by massive losses:
The composition matters. ChatGPT subscriptions drive the majority of current revenue. But agent revenue projections were cut by half to $1.4B for 2025, suggesting the agentic commerce bet hasn’t materialized at scale.
The “new products including free user monetization” category—which includes advertising—doesn’t become material until 2027-2028.
The Asymmetry That Defines the War
Google can afford to experiment because the core business prints cash. OpenAI must find monetization that works because it’s spending faster than it’s earning.
This is the financial logic behind OpenAI’s January 2026 advertising announcement: OpenAIneeds to monetize its 800M weekly users beyond subscriptions, and advertising is the proven model for doing so at scale.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
