OpenAI's next ChatGPT ad format: click to chat, not to site

OpenAI has introduced to select clients a new AI-native ad that turns a click into a conversation with a brand's AI agent inside ChatGPT, rather than sending users to the brand's website - an ad whose call-to-action reads "Chat to us." CFO Sarah Friar told Goldman Sachs' Communacopia conference that the current ads under ChatGPT responses are the "basic starting point," adding: "This is all before we've really launched a format that feels truly endemic to AI." Wayfair is trialing the format. Farhad Divecha, group CEO of Accuracast, likened it to Meta Ads that route to WhatsApp, a way to qualify prospects in-channel. The skeptical counterpoint comes from Zeno Group's Shamsul Chowdhury: "While they've been a hot new platform for advertisers, the ROI just hasn't been there for the most part."

The crux

OpenAI is betting the signature AI-era ad unit keeps the user inside its walled garden - turning a click into a brand-agent conversation - which is the next disintermediation risk for the open web and for retailers' own sites.

Sell-side read

Every ad click that resolves inside ChatGPT is a click that never lands on a publisher page, and it hands OpenAI the first-party conversion data publishers are losing - this format is a direct competitor for the same performance budget.

Watch

whether OpenAI opens the format beyond Wayfair and how much budget it pulls from Google and Meta into the holiday quarter.