Technology
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Ads Manager, Targeting $2.5 Billion in Ad Revenue
OpenAI has introduced a self-serve advertising platform inside ChatGPT, allowing brands to create and manage campaigns directly within the AI assistant. The company is targeting $2.5 billion in ad revenue this year and $100 billion annually by 2030.
By Patrick T ·
OpenAI has entered the advertising business. The company this week launched a self-serve Ads Manager platform that allows brands to create, manage, and optimise campaigns directly inside ChatGPT -- a move that transforms the AI assistant from an information tool into a commercial advertising ecosystem.
The rollout is significant in scale. OpenAI is reportedly targeting $2.5 billion in advertising revenue this year, with ambitions to reach $100 billion annually by 2030. For context, Google's advertising revenue in 2024 was approximately $237 billion. OpenAI is not trying to match that immediately -- but it is planting a flag in a market that has been Google's near-exclusive domain for two decades.
How It Works
The Ads Manager supports both cost-per-impression and cost-per-click buying models. Advertisers can integrate directly or work through agency holding companies and ad-tech firms including Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis, WPP, Adobe, Criteo, and StackAdapt. OpenAI says the platform includes new privacy controls and measurement tools designed to give advertisers confidence in attribution without compromising user data.
Critically, OpenAI has stated that ads will not influence ChatGPT's organic outputs. The company is drawing a hard line between paid placements and the model's responses -- a distinction that will be scrutinised closely by regulators and users alike. Whether that separation can be maintained at scale, and how it will be audited, remains an open question.
Why This Matters for Search
The advertising launch is the clearest signal yet that OpenAI views ChatGPT as a replacement for search, not just a complement to it. Search advertising is the most profitable digital advertising format ever invented. Google built a $1.8 trillion company on the back of it. If ChatGPT can capture even a small fraction of the queries that currently go to Google -- and monetise them through advertising -- the financial implications are enormous.
OpenAI's advertising expansion could fundamentally reshape search marketing, conversational commerce, performance media buying, and AI-driven customer acquisition.
MarketingProfs, May 8, 2026
The Privacy Question
OpenAI's entry into advertising raises immediate questions about data use. The company has access to an extraordinary amount of user intent data -- the questions people ask ChatGPT reveal preferences, concerns, and purchasing intentions in ways that traditional search queries only partially capture. How that data is used for ad targeting, and what controls users have, will be a defining issue as the platform scales.
For now, OpenAI has emphasised its privacy controls and measurement tools. But the advertising industry has a long history of expanding data use over time. Regulators in the EU and UK are likely to scrutinise the platform closely under GDPR and the Digital Markets Act.