The Ringer Ends ChatGPT Sponsorship After Listener Backlash to AI Segments, Bill Simmons Tells Bloomberg

Spotify-owned podcast network The Ringer ended a ChatGPT sponsorship after listeners objected to AI-driven segments, Bill Simmons told Bloomberg, as OpenAI's estimated podcast ad spending rose more than 600% to $11.2 million, per Podscribe.

Nov 14, 2026 - 15:17

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The Ringer, the Spotify-owned podcast network founded by Bill Simmons, has ended a sponsorship arrangement with OpenAI's ChatGPT after listeners objected to AI-driven segments that ran on several of its shows earlier this year, according to a Bloomberg report by Ashley Carman published Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026.

Simmons, The Ringer's founder and chief executive, confirmed the reversal in a statement to Bloomberg. "Last spring, we thought we could integrate AI research for baked-in content segments for a couple of our shows the way some of our competitors were doing (and also leagues like the NFL were doing) — I'm always going to try to be early instead of late on something," he said. "This time we learned almost immediately that those segments weren't a fit for us — our audience just didn't like them."

Bloomberg did not report the value of the deal or the date it ended, according to Net Influencer, which reviewed the report.

Where the ChatGPT Segments Ran

The sponsored segments appeared primarily on Simmons' own "The Bill Simmons Podcast" and on "The Ringer Fantasy Football Show," incorporating AI-generated prompts into on-air discussions, TheWrap and Awful Announcing reported.

Awful Announcing first documented the segments on Aug. 18, according to Net Influencer. On an Aug. 17 episode of "The Bill Simmons Podcast" about Russell Westbrook's retirement, a segment on the guard's defining game was introduced as "brought to you by ChatGPT, the Bill Simmons Podcast AI sponsor." The chatbot selected an April 2017 Oklahoma City Thunder game against the Denver Nuggets. On the fantasy football show, hosts used ChatGPT to pull players' average draft positions and other statistics.

Listener reaction surfaced within days. The top five Spotify comments on the Westbrook episode all teased or criticized the segment, and the top post on the r/billsimmons subreddit that day was titled "The ChatGPT of it all kind of makes me want to stop listening," Net Influencer reported, citing Awful Announcing's August coverage.

According to Net Influencer's review of the show's podcast feed, ChatGPT ad copy ran in the notes of four "Bill Simmons Podcast" episodes in August, the last on Aug. 25, and has not appeared in the 35 episodes published since.

The Roger Ebert Segments and Pushback From Ringer Hosts

Simmons also drew criticism for using ChatGPT on "The Rewatchables," the network's movie podcast, to generate approximations of how the late film critic Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, might have reviewed films. In a March episode, Simmons asked the chatbot for an Ebert-style take on "The Nice Guys," and reported on air that ChatGPT said Ebert "probably" would have given the film three and a half stars, The A.V. Club reported.

Objections came from inside The Ringer as well. Sean Fennessey, who co-hosts "The Big Picture" and appears on "The Rewatchables," criticized the Ebert segments during an August appearance on "Talk Easy With Sam Fragoso." "I don't like it. I've told Bill I don't like it," Fennessey said, according to TheWrap, which reported that he and fellow Ringer podcaster Chris Ryan had expressed discomfort with the experiment. Fennessey added that he would not want AI used to recreate his own opinions after his death. Awful Announcing identified Fennessey as The Ringer's senior talk strategist and former head of content.

Amanda Dobbins, Fennessey's co-host on "The Big Picture," said on the same program that she had not known about the ChatGPT advertisements. "Oh, brother," she said. "That's not my decision level," according to Bloomberg's account as summarized by Quartz. Fans clipped the exchange into short videos that spread widely on social media, and the cancellation came some time afterward, Quartz reported.

AI Companies Keep Increasing Podcast Ad Spending

The Ringer's retreat comes as artificial intelligence companies spend more on podcast advertising. OpenAI is estimated to have spent $11.2 million on podcast ads during the last three months, an increase of more than 600% from a year earlier, according to ad-measurement firm Podscribe data cited by Bloomberg. Anthropic is estimated to have committed $2 million in the same window, up 93%, Quartz reported. Combined, the two companies' estimated spending topped $13 million, TheWrap and Awful Announcing reported.

Those totals remain a small share of a podcast advertising market that Bloomberg valued at $2.9 billion, according to Quartz.

Not every AI sponsorship has met resistance. Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Ben Shapiro have delivered sponsor reads for Perplexity AI without much objection from listeners, and the history podcast "The Rest Is History" advertises Anthropic's Claude, Bloomberg reported, according to Quartz. OpenAI also bought the tech talk show "TBPN" earlier this year, Net Influencer noted.

Audience research points to the sensitivity of the issue. In Edison Research's "The Podcast Consumer 2026" study, 62% of weekly podcast consumers said AI poses at least some threat to podcast credibility, Net Influencer reported.

What Has Not Been Disclosed

Simmons has not said whether The Ringer will accept advertising from other AI companies, or whether OpenAI advertising will continue to run on Ringer shows as standard ad reads, according to Net Influencer.