You can now buy an ad in ChatGPT. You still can’t buy the answer.

What happened

• Advertising revenue. On August 31, OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualized run rate less than 200 days after launch, with tens of thousands of advertisers in more than 40 countries. A run rate is the current pace multiplied out to a year, not money already earned.
• Small businesses can buy directly. OpenAI says the self-serve Ads Manager it introduced in May opened the platform to small and medium-sized businesses. On August 31 it extended self-serve access to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Most campaigns now bid per click or per outcome.
• New this week. On October 5, OpenAI announced an image-based ad format, to be tested in the US later this month, and a longer list of measurement partners. It now says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people a week.
• Answer independence. OpenAI says ads are labeled and kept apart from answers, and that “advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.”

Our take

If you already buy search ads, a small ChatGPT Ads test may be worth considering.

But an ad can sit beside an answer that names your competitors. OpenAI says buying that placement does not change the answer, so check the unpaid answer as well as your ad results.

Track paid ad performance and unpaid mentions separately. The sources here do not establish whether being named in an answer changes ad credibility or cost.

One caution on the numbers. The success stories in OpenAI’s posts come from its own advertisers and measurement partners. Treat them as a reason to test, not as a forecast.

What to do this week

1. Before you spend anything, ask ChatGPT the buying questions for your category and write down who it names.
2. If you test ads, set up conversion tracking first, and judge the test on new customers rather than clicks.
3. Keep watching the unpaid answer. Ads support the free tier. The answer is what every user reads.