The ad stack goes conversational

OpenAI rolled out oCPM, conversion-optimised campaigns billed on impressions, and confirmed Sponsored Agents, while Google put its Business Agent inside YouTube ads and Meta bundled agents into a subscription. The ad is becoming a conversation, not a click.

The crux

When a conversational ad keeps a shopper inside ChatGPT or YouTube, the referral that once monetised a publisher never happens.

Sell-side read

Publishers should treat AI surfaces as a distribution layer that may pay on impressions but not on clicks, and push for the attribution and reporting that make their content's role in those answers visible.

Watch

OpenAI's Sponsored Agents rollout beyond a handful of US advertisers, and whether conversational formats cannibalise open-web referral traffic.