OpenAI prepares interactive ads that respond to ChatGPT users

OpenAI is taking advertising in ChatGPT to the next level: instead of ordinary sponsored cards, the company is preparing formats that can respond directly to users within the conversation itself. To do this, it's connecting external ad-tech partners and simultaneously building a full-fledged advertising team.

How advertising will change

Currently, advertising in ChatGPT for free users in the US looks relatively simple: after a query about a product or trip, the service can display a marked sponsored block below the main response. But the next step is noticeably more ambitious. OpenAI is working with Smartly — a Finnish advertising automation platform — on formats where the ad doesn't just sit next to the response, but continues the conversation.

Users will be able to click on the ad block and enter a separate mini-dialogue within ChatGPT, where the brand will offer more precise options, clarify preferences, and tailor the recommendation to the context. Essentially, OpenAI wants to embed advertising into the very mechanic that brings people to ChatGPT in the first place — the conversational interface. This is an important shift: if previously advertising looked like the familiar insertions from search or marketplaces, now it's beginning to imitate the behavior of the assistant itself.

Smartly, according to the partnership description, will help not only with creatives but also with optimization efficiency — that is, changing targeting and ad content depending on how the user interacts with the new format.

How OpenAI builds ad-tech

The transition to interactive advertising doesn't look like a cautious experiment. OpenAI is rapidly building a full commercial infrastructure around ChatGPT. In addition to Smartly, the company has already attracted Criteo as its first formal ad-tech partner, which since March 2 has been connecting around 17,000 advertisers to ChatGPT's ad inventory. OpenAI also discussed further sales scaling with The Trade Desk. In late March, the company hired David Dugan, a former top executive at Meta, to lead a new global advertising solutions division.

• On February 9, 2026, OpenAI enabled advertising in ChatGPT for free users in the US.
• By the end of March, the pilot had reached $100 million in annualized revenue, attracted over 600 advertisers, and covered less than one-fifth of the eligible audience.
• ChatGPT already has more than 800 million active users per week, but only about 5% pay for a subscription.
• OpenAI plans to open self-serve tools for advertisers in April, removing the current $200,000 entry threshold.
• The initial launch ran at a CPM of around $60, and Criteo claims that traffic from large language models converts 1.5 times better than other channels.

The signal to the market is simple: OpenAI is no longer testing whether advertising should be in the product at all. The company is already assuming that advertising will become a notable part of revenue from the free audience. It told investors that ChatGPT's consumer revenue could exceed $17 billion in 2026. If the self-serve model actually works, not only large brands but also small and medium-sized businesses will be able to enter the platform. In parallel, OpenAI is preparing to expand pilots beyond the US — to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and then to other markets.

Where risks emerge

The main question is not whether ChatGPT will have more advertising, but how far it can use conversation context. OpenAI claims that conversations are not passed to advertisers, and brands themselves receive only aggregated metrics like impressions and clicks. The company also states that it doesn't show ads next to health, mental health, and political topics, and users under 18 don't see such ads at all.

On paper, this looks like a reasonable set of restrictions, but this is precisely where the most painful dispute begins. Critics point out that ChatGPT stores an unusually sensitive layer of user data: people discuss purchases, work, anxiety, relationships, and personal plans with the bot. Meanwhile, after clicking on an ad, purchase data can return to OpenAI, and the updated privacy policy allows contact sync features in which phone numbers can be processed.

Against this backdrop, Anthropic is already using an ad-free positioning of Claude as a competitive advantage and is directly playing on the contrast with OpenAI.

"The company is building an economic engine whose incentives will outweigh its own rules over time," is how

Zoe Hitzig, a former OpenAI researcher, described this shift.

What this means

For the advertising market, ChatGPT is transforming from simply another placement channel into a new type of interface where an ad can speak to a user almost on equal footing with the assistant. For OpenAI, this is a chance to monetize hundreds of millions of free users faster. But if the line between a useful answer and a commercial dialogue begins to blur, the company risks its most valuable asset — ChatGPT's trust in its suggestions and recommendations.