Your customers are asking ChatGPT before they ask Google.
OpenAI opened self-serve advertising inside ChatGPT in May 2026 — sponsored placements that appear alongside AI-generated answers, reaching 1B+ weekly users across Free and Go plans. sprkl /scale plans, builds, and manages your brand’s presence in this channel from the ground up.
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ChatGPT now shows sponsored placements to logged-in Free and Go users — clearly labeled, separated from the AI’s actual answer, and matched to what someone is asking about in the moment, not a list of keywords they typed into a search bar. The formats are new: sponsored answer cards, product spotlight units, and contextual sidebar placements, each with their own creative and targeting requirements.
sprkl /scale sets up and runs your brand’s campaigns inside this channel — from Ads Manager setup and creative built for these specific formats, to targeting strategy based on conversational context, to reporting you can actually act on. We stay inside the platform’s rules — restricted categories including health, finance, political, and adult content are handled according to OpenAI’s policies — and keep your brand positioned correctly as the channel evolves.
Why now
This isn’t a future bet. OpenAI’s Ads Manager went self-serve in May 2026 with no minimum spend, and by mid-2026 brands including Best Buy, Lowe’s, and VistaPrint were already running live campaigns. The program has expanded to 40+ countries, with availability growing across the Middle East. ChatGPT is now one of the most-visited websites in the world, and a growing share of the buying decisions your customers used to start with a Google search now start with a question to an AI assistant instead.
- New channel, early stage. The same dynamic that rewarded early search advertisers in the 2000s and early social advertisers in the 2010s applies here — early participation lets you test formats, build knowledge, and establish a presence before the channel matures.
- Intent, not keywords. Ads are matched to what users are actively discussing, not a static keyword list. This is a fundamentally different targeting model worth understanding now.
- No minimum commitment. Self-serve access with no minimum spend means you can start testing with a controlled budget.
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