Ads from a handful of major brands—including Expedia, Qualcomm, Best Buy, and Enterprise Mobility—have begun appearing inside ChatGPT responses, a spokesperson for OpenAI told ADWEEK.
Online wedding vendor The Knot Worldwide is also running ads inside ChatGPT, said a spokesperson for the company. Best Buy and Enterprise Mobility also independently confirmed to ADWEEK that they are participating in early tests. Expedia and Qualcomm did not respond to requests for comment.
“We believe ads play an important role in continuing to support broad access to AI,” said Asad Awan, ads and monetization lead at OpenAI told ADWEEK in a statement. “By working closely with partners in this pilot, we’re able to thoughtfully test new ad experiences and learn together to ensure ads are separate and clearly distinct, relevant, and useful while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT.”
The early experiments offer a clearer picture of how OpenAI is beginning to build an advertising business inside its flagship chatbot—starting with a small group of brands, limited inventory, and tightly controlled placements. The AI company previously confirmed to ADWEEK that it wants advertisers to pay at least $200,000 for its early ad test.
OpenAI began rolling out ads inside ChatGPT for free and Go users on Feb. 9 as it looks to diversify its revenue beyond subscriptions. Holding companies including Dentsu, Omnicom, and WPP have lined up to test placements in the chatbot, bringing brands such as Adobe, Audemars Piguet, Audible, Ford, Mazda, and Mrs. Meyer’s into early experiments, ADWEEK previously reported.
ChatGPT’s ad business may be underway, but early signals suggest OpenAI is prioritizing restraint over scale, limiting placements to a small pool of advertisers and a fraction of user queries.
Adthena analyzed more than 500 prompts on ChatGPT and found ads appeared in roughly 0.8% of responses. These ads were from Expedia, Qualcomm, Best Buy, and Enterprise Mobility, the search intelligence platform told ADWEEK.
The findings suggest that, while OpenAI is officially running ads, it is starting with a curated, and conservative approach to ad frequency, according to Adthena.
That scarcity could also signal how OpenAI is positioning early access to advertisers, working with a curated mix of enterprise brands and select partners as it shapes its ad offering.
