ChatGPT’s advertising play puts its underlying fundamentals to the test
Dan Hunjas, founder and director of Edge Marketing, explains how most marketing teams will misunderstand the benefits of engaging with ChatGPT’s new advertising play.
OpenAI is selling ad inventory for the first time in the US
This week, OpenAI has introduced an advertising tier to ChatGPT. It has been clear about its intent: advertising will be introduced, answers will remain independent, and user trust will not be compromised. That alone tells us it will not behave like another performance channel bolted onto an existing stack.
The problem is that most marketing teams will still treat it that way.
New platform rollouts trigger a familiar response. Formats are analysed, placements are tested, budgets are reallocated and optimisation frameworks are dusted off. That reflex has worked well enough for search and social, but it fundamentally misunderstands what ChatGPT is.
This is not a channel shift, it is a shift in how brands are judged. And let’s face it, conversational advertising does not reward the brands that shout the loudest or have the biggest budgets, it rewards the brands that hold up under real evaluation.
