ChatGPT wants your ad dollars, so how can you make the most out of it?

ChatGPT’s global rollout of its low-cost Go subscription tier may seem like a pricing story. But beneath the surface lies a far more consequential shift: OpenAI is laying the groundwork for advertising inside an answer engine, a move that could redefine how brands compete for attention and influence.

While ads are not yet live, OpenAI will begin testing them in the US on the free and Go tiers. Paid plans will remain ad-free, and the company has stressed that ads will not influence ChatGPT’s responses, will be clearly labelled, and will not rely on selling user data. Advertising, OpenAI says, is intended to support broader access to AI while keeping subscription tiers affordable.

For marketers and agencies, this is not just another channel. It represents a fundamental change in where influence is formed. Unlike social media feeds, where users scroll passively, ChatGPT operates closer to the point where decisions are shaped. Shane Liuw, CEO of First Page Digital, describes the platform as a “trusted advisor,” highlighting that this proximity to intent could make advertising on ChatGPT uniquely powerful for brands.

Don't miss: ChatGPT Go rolls out globally, ads to be tested on free and Go tiers 

Faheem Merchant, general manager at iProspect Indonesia, agrees, emphasising that influence is being formed earlier in the customer journey. “We are already advising clients to pivot from SEO to AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation). If your brand is not part of the AI’s retrieval path, you do not just lose the click, you lose the conversation entirely.”

Industry professionals are aligned on one key point - ChatGPT changes the logic of influence. Brands must now contend not only with visibility but with trust.

Opportunities and risks

Dan Kalinski, APAC managing director of NP Digital notes that the platform’s value lies in users actively seeking answers, making it fertile ground for advertising that feels helpful and relevant. The potential of ChatGPT Ads stems from this alignment with intent, particularly for brands that appear in relevant responses.

Meanwhile, Liuw highlighted the upside for smaller players, where advertising allows them to achieve visibility at moments of active consideration rather than during passive browsing. Yet the closeness to trust also creates fragility. Missteps in ad relevance or presentation could erode user confidence quickly, turning the platform’s unique advantage into a liability. “If ads feel intrusive or biased, it could undermine user confidence in the platform very quickly as well,” said Liuw.

Brand safety risks could also occur amidst this new offering. In fact, Merchant warns that AI introduces brand safety risks that go beyond conventional guidelines and if the AI "hallucinates" or displays bias, it poses a real risk to a brand's integrity. He added that brands must be prepared for operational teething issues and have contingencies ready.

Meanwhile, Chen Shi Yen, group strategy director at Invictus Blue, frames it more strategically: “Many brands today are effectively invisible to AI systems because their websites, content, or data structures were never built to be machine-legible.”

If you haven’t defined what your brand stands for in a way AI can interpret, the system will do it for you, often by flattening you into a generic category.

A new battleground for budgets?

This shift also reframes how ad spend might move. While some marketers may expect budgets to flow directly from Google or social platforms, industry players emphasise that any shift will be selective and complementary. Liuw shares that while budgets won’t disappear from Google or social overnight, there might be a reallocation from upper-funnel and search discovery budgets.

"ChatGPT competes more with search intent than with social attention, so band marketing will still be still crucial for brand success,” said Liuw.

Chen agrees, noting that ChatGPT will not replace existing channels, but rather “reframe the ecosystem” where brands will continue to invest in paid media, but increasingly they’ll need to invest in becoming authoritative sources within AI systems given that that’s where intent is being formed. “In that sense, AI doesn’t replace media. It changes what media is,” said Chen.

Nikki Taylor, marketing and communications director, Analytic Partners, echoes this view, cautioning against assuming wholesale budget shifts. She notes that any movement towards ChatGPT Ads is more likely to come from test and optimisation budgets rather than full reallocations, particularly as brands assess its role in discovery rather than demand creation.

“No channel works in isolation. Impact comes from how platforms reinforce each other over time,” she said, adding that budget pressure will only follow if ChatGPT proves incremental impact, not just lower cost-per-acquisition.

Measuring the invisible

Perhaps the most important question to any and all investment today is how performance will be tracked. Traditional last-click attribution is ill-suited to a platform where AI mediates the user’s path. Taylor warns that proximity to decision can distort perceived effectiveness. Because ChatGPT Ads sit late in the journey, they risk being over-credited for conversions they did not create.

“Late-journey formats often look powerful even when they are not incremental,” she explained, adding that brands should avoid relying solely on platform-reported ROAS.

Instead, Taylor argues that performance should be judged by system-wide impact rather than isolated efficiency. This includes whether ChatGPT Ads improve conversion rates elsewhere, lift lead quality, or shorten decision cycles.

Similarly, Kalinski said that “Businesses will need to rethink ROI beyond last-click attribution, and focus instead on broader signals such as brand lift, assisted conversions, and downstream impact." 

For early movers, success will come from thoughtful testing and using ChatGPT to influence consideration rather than driving immediate transactions, with relevance and usefulness playing a bigger role than precision targeting, added Kalinski.

Adding to his point, Merchant suggests early adopters to focus on lower-funnel signals such as clicks to marketplaces and organic search spikes. He also sees this as an opportunity to invest in independent data ecosystems and first-party infrastructure rather than relying solely on platform reporting: “As AI monetisation scales, brands will have no choice but to construct their own independent data ecosystems.”

“It compels a strategic shift where measurement relies less on platform reporting and more on the strength of a brand's internal architecture and first-party data,” he explained.

Chen, on the other hand, argues for an even broader lens, proposing that brands track AI visibility and authority such as how often they appear in responses and whether they are recommended or merely mentioned.

AI shouldn’t be measured like media, it should be measured like influence.

“AI answers don’t generate impressions or clicks, so forcing traditional KPIs onto them misses the point,” added Chen.

Taken together, ChatGPT Ads signal a reorientation of marketing logic. Visibility alone is no longer enough as brands must now be interpretable, credible, and consistently recommended by AI. As Chen puts it: “The winners won’t be the loudest or the biggest spenders. They’ll be the brands that machines can understand, trust, and confidently recommend.”

In other words, if search monetised intent, AI shapes it. And that changes what media, influence, and marketing ROI will mean in the years ahead.

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