Key Takeaways

  • OpenAI is introducing a visual advertising format in ChatGPT alongside expanded measurement, attribution, and brand-suitability capabilities.
  • The move positions ChatGPT as a channel for product discovery and transactions, not simply another destination for display advertising.
  • Advertiser enthusiasm remains ahead of consumer acceptance, making disclosure, relevance, and separation between paid content and answers central concerns.

OpenAI is extending ChatGPT’s commercial role with a new visual ad format and a broader set of campaign measurement, attribution partnership, and brand-suitability capabilities. The additions signal that OpenAI wants to give marketers more familiar controls while developing an advertising model suited to conversational discovery.

That distinction matters. A conventional search or social advertisement occupies a defined slot, usually beside organic material. ChatGPT users, by contrast, ask questions, refine preferences, compare options, and sometimes move toward a purchase within the same conversation. Advertising in that setting can be useful, but it can also feel unusually influential if commercial content is not clearly identified.

The visual format gives brands a way to present products or offers beyond plain text. Expanded measurement tools and attribution partnerships could also help advertisers determine whether exposure inside ChatGPT contributes to site visits, conversions, or other business outcomes. Brand-suitability controls address another familiar concern: where and when a company’s message appears.

Familiar campaign tools do not make conversational advertising familiar to users. The interface is different, and so is the level of trust people may place in an answer. OpenAI’s larger challenge is therefore not merely attracting budgets. It is establishing a workable boundary between an assistant’s response and a paid placement.

The addressable audience is already substantial. AI assistants reached 36% of desktop users and 24% of mobile users in 2025, according to Comscore data cited in current industry research. More than 30% of Google desktop searches displayed an AI Overview. Nearly 63% of hotel bookers also visited an AI platform before booking, suggesting that assistants are influencing decisions in commercially important categories.

Those patterns put ChatGPT alongside Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot as part of a broader shift toward assistant-led discovery. For marketers, visibility may increasingly depend on being present when an assistant helps a user compare, narrow, or act, rather than interrupting that user somewhere else.

Advertisers appear ready to test the model. Three-quarters expect AI to increase total media spending, while one-third anticipate an improvement of at least 10% in return on ad spend. Yet confidence inside the industry is running ahead of consumer sentiment. IAB and Sonata Insights found that only 45% of surveyed Gen Z and millennial consumers viewed AI-generated advertising positively, compared with 82% of advertising executives who expected a positive response.

That gap is hard to wave away. Research from Bentley University and Gallup found that 79% of U.S. adults had seen advertising that appeared to be made with AI, and 49% viewed businesses’ use of AI in advertising negatively. At the same time, 75% accepted disclosed AI assistance for brainstorming or drafting. Consumers may be less opposed to the technology itself than to ambiguity about how it was used.

So what should an effective ChatGPT advertisement look like? Relevance helps, but disclosure is likely to matter just as much. Paid visual units should be identifiable without forcing users to inspect fine print. Advertisers will also want understandable explanations of attribution windows, conversion methodology, placement exclusions, and how brand-suitability decisions are applied in dynamic conversations.

The Associated Press has similarly highlighted the tension between consumers using AI to find products and reacting skeptically to AI-made advertising. That tension creates a curious requirement for brands: they may benefit from appearing in AI-assisted discovery while taking a restrained approach to synthetic creative.

Governance will sit underneath the campaign mechanics. The IAB Transparency and Consent Framework offers standardized approaches to disclosure and consent signals, while the NIST AI Risk Management Framework organizes oversight around the functions of GOVERN, MAP, MEASURE, and MANAGE. Applied here, those functions can help teams review privacy, bias, transparency, and reliability before scaling spending.

OpenAI’s expanded advertising capabilities could attract money that currently flows to search, social media, and display inventory. But the stronger opportunity may be something less interruptive: helping a user move from a broad question to an informed choice. If OpenAI can preserve a visible distinction between assistance and promotion, ChatGPT may become a meaningful commercial channel without sacrificing the trust that made conversational discovery valuable in the first place.