OpenAI is becoming an advertising company.
At Cannes Lions last month, David Dugan, the new Head of Global Ads Solutions, made the direction clear.
In just 6 months, OpenAI has built a serious ad business.
• Self-serve Ads Manager
• CPC bidding
• Conversion tracking
• New measurement tools
• Distribution partnerships
• Feed-based ads and advanced audience targeting under development
AI ads are not search ads. Not social ads.
They are not classic display either.
They sit in a strange middle ground.
On search, users show intent first and ads simply respond to it.
On social, ads interrupt attention inside a feed.
In ChatGPT, the ad appears inside a conversation that may not have started with buying intent at all.
According to Similarweb, 46% of users who opened a conversation with zero commercial intent developed buying signals by the time an ad appeared.
AI conversations don’t just capture intent.
They help create it.
That makes ChatGPT Ads feel closer to brand advertising than direct response.
But the mechanics and ad format still look like performance marketing:
• 0.68% overall CTR, up to 5.4% for top brands
• Around $60 CPM
• Around $12 CPC
Too weak for search.
Too strong for display.
Possibly closer to premium display or even podcast advertising.
And OpenAI has a clear reason to push hard on ads.
Subscription revenue alone seems unlikely to cover the massive costs.
Advertising is an obvious solution.
OpenAI reportedly expects $2.5B in ad revenue in 2026.
And even $100B by 2030!
For context, Pinterest made $4.2B in 2025.
Large advertisers are already moving in.
Including Amazon, which unexpectedly started advertising product listings on ChatGPT in June.
We are witnessing the birth of a new advertising giant!
Now the questions is:
how much budget will it pull from Google and Meta?
Source: Similarweb "Ads in AI" report
Infographic courtesy of ChatGPT
