Ads are coming to ChatGPT. Are advertisers ready to leap in?

It’s the world’s worst-kept secret, but it has the potential to change digital advertising forever.

OpenAI has announced that ads are coming to ChatGPT, with tests starting “in the coming weeks” for logged-in adult users in the U.S. on the free tier and a new $8-per-month Go plan. Sponsored slots will be labeled and placed at the bottom of answers rather than inside the generated text.

“It’s very exciting,” said Paula Hijosa, AI and performance lead at growth marketing agency Space & Time. “Everyone is very happy and asking what’s happening next.” It’s a massive moment for advertisers, and for OpenAI itself, which boasts 800 million weekly active users as of December 2025. “I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that AI agents will be the most lucrative advertising ‘channel’ of all time,” said Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer at omnichannel advertising company Mediaocean.

But the opportunity is not without caveats. Advertisers ought to take care before leaping into the ChatGPT ad era, cautioned Miranda Bogen, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab.

“In introducing ads to ChatGPT, OpenAI is starting down a risky path,” she explained. “AI companies should be extremely careful not to repeat the many mistakes that have been made — and harms that have resulted from — the adoption of personalized ads on social media and around the web.” Indeed, one study from Pew Research found 77% of Americans do not trust social media companies to admit responsibility for misusing personal data.

Balancing risk and reward

Beyond the reputational risks to OpenAI, advertising informed by data obtained and held from personal chats has the potential to impact brand perception. “People are using chatbots for all sorts of reasons, including as companions and advisers,” Bogen said. “There’s a lot at stake when that tool tries to exploit users’ trust to hawk advertisers’ goods.”

It’s something that advertisers ought to consider — particularly if they’re operating in niches, such as health, where serving user needs efficaciously can quickly cross from tailored to invasive.

For now, at least, OpenAI will be avoiding serving ads on “sensitive” topics like politics and health. “But knowing how lucrative those categories are for advertisers, it’s only a matter of time before they move those goalposts,” Goldman said.

“It’s very important to keep the trust,” Space & Time’s Hijosa said, who explained that she believes adding advertisements to ChatGPT is “not as intrusive as other channels,” because OpenAI owns the end-to-end experiences in a traditional marketing funnel within its single chat interface.

To Hijosa’s thinking, owning the funnel turns advertising into something closer to recommendations than traditional display ads — similar to how Amazon operates. That’s something Mediaocean’s Goldman agreed with. “At first glance, the advertising principles OpenAI has laid out to ensure ads won’t detract from the user experience nor compromise privacy seem well conceived.”

The commercial opportunity is high intent for advertisers, Hijosa said: Marketers could place brands in an environment “where people are ready to make a commercial decision,” with ads that can be interacted with inside the same flow. And unlike Amazon, where people specifically have to go to the platform to find things, ChatGPT offers a conversational flow that can be easy to convert into purchases.

Who is AI helping?

Beyond the worry that personal conversations are becoming fodder for targeting, Hijoas points to the question of authenticity: Will AI’s answers serve users or advertisers?

OpenAI has said that commercial incentives won’t affect the quality of its models’ output. “You need to trust that ChatGPT’s responses are driven by what’s objectively useful, never by advertising,” the company said in a blog post announcing the ad rollout. “You need to know that your data and conversations are protected and never sold to advertisers.”

But for advertisers, there’s a bigger challenge to overcome: How do you present yourself so that you end up being served to users through those ad formats?

The company says the first ads will be a clearly labeled “Sponsored” module placed below an answer when there’s a relevant paid product or service tied to the ongoing conversation. Users will be able to see why they’re being shown an ad, dismiss it and opt out of the limited personalization OpenAI uses for matching.

“The old keyword-bid model won’t cut it,” Goldman said, advising that brands need to think contextually. He forecasts that some of the early winners in the space will be sectors where immediacy matters, such as travel, retail and other services.

Yet Goldman doesn’t believe this shift makes existing advertising and marketing expertise irrelevant. “At the end of the day, ChatGPT isn’t replacing search,” he said. “It’s creating a new channel where prescriptive targeting and adaptive creative need to meet the moment for people in the most intimate environments.”