ChatGPT Ads and Retail Media in AI Answers: What Brands Can Buy in 2026

The short version

Until recently, most AI shopping answers carried no ads, and the way in was to be the product the model chose. That has changed fast. As of 28 October 2026, a brand can pay for a labelled slot inside or beside an AI answer on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Amazon's Alexa for Shopping and, in tests, Walmart's Sparky. Perplexity tried ads and stopped. Anthropic has said Claude will carry none.

Two things hold across the platforms. Every paid slot is labelled as sponsored, and OpenAI in particular says ads do not change what ChatGPT recommends, so money buys a place next to the answer, not the answer itself. And in a growing share of formats the advertiser no longer writes the ad word for word: Amazon and Google have a model write it from the brand's product data, and ChatGPT's product ads fill a template from the feed. That second point is why retail media in AI answers is a catalog problem as much as a media-buying one.

Who sells a slot in the answer, as of October 2026

Meta Muse is missing on purpose: Meta has not announced an ad product inside Muse, and our Muse guide for brands covers what it does instead.

Two kinds of retail media inside AI answers

It helps to split the market in two, because the buying logic is different.

Open assistants answer questions about the whole web. An ad there is closer to a search ad: you pay to be seen by someone who is still deciding where to buy, and the click lands on your own site or on a checkout partner.

Retailer assistants only shop one store. Amazon's and Walmart's assistants recommend from their own catalog, and the ads they sell promote products that are already listed there. This is classic retail media, the business Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect already run, moved from the results grid into the conversation. Walmart's version is explicit about it: advertisers can only sponsor visibility for their own Walmart-listed products (B&T, 8 January 2026).

ChatGPT ads: how OpenAI got to 89 countries in just over eight months

OpenAI moved fast. The dated steps:

• 16 January 2026. OpenAI said it would test ads for logged-in adults in the US on the Free and Go plans, and that Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise would stay ad-free (OpenAI).
• 9 February 2026. The test started. Ads appear at the bottom of a response, separated from it and labelled as sponsored, and are matched to the topic of the conversation, past chats and past ad interactions. Advertisers see aggregate numbers such as views and clicks, not conversations. No ads run in conversations about health, mental health or politics, or for accounts identified as under 18 (Search Engine Journal).
• 5 May 2026. OpenAI opened a self-serve Ads Manager in beta for US businesses, added cost-per-click bidding next to impression pricing, and confirmed a pixel and a Conversions API for measurement (Axios, PPC Land).
• 5 October 2026. OpenAI announced a test of visual ads shown while people generate images, plus conversion data imports through Hightouch, Tealium and LiveRamp and brand-safety pilots with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (OpenAI, BleepingComputer).
• 21 October 2026. Ads expanded to 26 more countries, 89 in total, and OpenAI said more than 100,000 advertisers had used the platform (OpenAI, gHacks).

What a product ad in ChatGPT is built from

For a merchant, the interesting part is the product feed route. OpenAI's ads documentation describes ads created from a catalog: you upload a product file, choose which products each ad group may use, and write a template that fills in the title, description and price when the ad is shown. The image and the landing URL come from the selected product. Products have to be flagged with is_ads_eligible, their pages and images must be public HTTPS URLs, and OpenAI warns that a completed upload does not mean every product can serve (OpenAI Ads, product feeds).

In other words, the "creative" of a ChatGPT product ad is your feed row. A wrong price, a stale stock flag or a vague title is not a data quality issue any more; it is the ad.

Organic results stay separate

ChatGPT's shopping results, the product carousels that appear for buying questions, are not ads. OpenAI's help center says those results are selected independently and are not ads (OpenAI Help Center); paid visibility runs through the separate ads product. Getting into the organic carousel is a different job, covered in how to get your products into ChatGPT shopping. The two can coexist on one screen: your product recommended in the answer, a competitor's ad under it.

What ChatGPT ads cost

OpenAI does not publish a rate card. At launch, reports put the minimum commitment at $200,000 (some agencies were quoted $250,000) and the price at about $60 per thousand views (Search Engine Journal, citing Adweek and Digiday). By April 2026 the pilot minimum had fallen to $50,000 and buyers reported prices as low as $25 per thousand views (PPC Land, 17 April 2026). The self-serve Ads Manager added cost-per-click bidding in May 2026 (PPC Land). Treat any CPC figure you read in agency blogs as anecdotal until your own account shows one.

Google: ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode, new formats in test

Google started earlier. Ads in AI Overviews first appeared on mobile in the US in October 2024 (Marketing Brew). On 21 May 2025 Google extended them to desktop in the US and began testing ads in AI Mode (Google). In December 2025 AI Overviews ads reached 11 more English-language markets, among them Australia, Canada, India and Singapore (PPC Land). By 2026 standard Search and Shopping ads were serving in AI Mode in the US, drawn from Performance Max, Shopping and broad-match or AI Max campaigns, with no opt-out (Adthena, 26 August 2026).

A year later, at Google Marketing Live on 20 May 2026, Google described the next set (Google):

• Conversational Discovery ads answer the shopper's specific question with creative that Gemini writes for that query. In testing.
• Highlighted Answers let a relevant ad appear inside the list of recommendations AI Mode gives. In testing, and labelled "Sponsored".
• AI-powered Shopping ads show products with a custom explainer written by Gemini, announced for "the coming months".
• Direct Offers, in pilot since January 2026 with brands such as Chewy, Gap and L'Oréal, now include native checkout for merchants on the Universal Commerce Protocol, with promotion bundling to follow.

Google's own advice is to build on AI Max for Search, AI Max for Shopping and Performance Max. For a merchant, that means the inputs are the Merchant Center feed, the promotions you upload and the landing pages Gemini reads. Google does not list countries for the AI Mode formats, so check eligibility in your own account before you plan a budget.

Amazon: sponsored prompts are already billed

Amazon has the most mature version, because its assistant lives inside its own store.

• Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands prompts are AI-generated, clickable questions or product facts that appear on results pages and detail pages, and open a conversation with the assistant. They ran free in beta from November 2025 and became generally available, and billed through the existing CPC, in the US on 25 March 2026. Eligible campaigns are enrolled automatically, prompts can be paused one by one, and a Prompts report shows impressions, clicks, spend and sales per prompt (Amazon Ads).
• Sponsored ads inside the conversation. On 11 June 2026 Amazon Ads said existing sponsored ads campaigns are automatically eligible to serve in Alexa for Shopping, with no added setup (Amazon Ads).
• Branded Conversations, announced on 29 September 2026, let a brand supply its own product expertise for the assistant to use in a sponsored, multi-turn conversation. US launch in January 2027 (Amazon Ads).

Note who writes the copy: Amazon generates the prompts from the detail page, the Brand Store and campaign data. A seller does not choose the exact question that triggers a product. What the listing says is what the prompt can say. Our Alexa for Shopping guide for sellers covers the organic side of the same assistant.

In an AI answer, the ad is increasingly built from your product data, not from copy you wrote.

Kris Krokos

Walmart: sponsored prompts in Sparky, still a test

Walmart said in January 2026 that it was testing ads inside Sparky, its shopping assistant, where a sponsored prompt can appear when a shopper asks for recommendations (Adweek, B&T). Walmart has not published a general availability date. Walmart introduced Marty, its AI agent for partners, in July 2025, and in January 2026 began piloting an advertising assistant in it that helps brands manage Sponsored Search campaigns (Digital Commerce 360). What Sparky reads and where it now runs, including inside ChatGPT, is in our Walmart Sparky guide for sellers.

Who said no: Perplexity and Claude

Not every assistant wants ads. Perplexity launched sponsored follow-up questions in late 2024, stopped accepting new advertisers in October 2025 (TipRanks), then wound the programme down. In February 2026 its executives said they had no plans for more advertising, arguing that ads make users doubt every answer (PYMNTS, citing the Financial Times, 18 February 2026). Anthropic said on 4 February 2026 that Claude will have no ads or sponsored links in conversations and no advertiser influence on responses (MacRumors).

For a merchant this matters in one way: on those two, organic visibility is the only visibility. Our comparison of AI shopping assistants shows which source each assistant reads.

How ads in AI answers differ from search ads

Three consequences follow.

Your catalog is the creative. ChatGPT fills your template from your feed, Gemini writes the explainer from your feed and pages, Amazon writes the prompt from your detail page. Missing attributes do not just cost you organic visibility; they produce a weaker ad.

The organic answer still decides most of the outcome. OpenAI says ads sit below responses and do not affect what ChatGPT recommends, and Google labels its AI Mode formats as sponsored next to an independent explainer. If the answer recommends a competitor, your ad sits under a recommendation for someone else. Paid and organic work need to be planned together.

Measurement is thin. OpenAI added a pixel, a Conversions API and outside partners in 2026, but advertisers still do not see the prompt behind a click, a point eMarketer raised at launch (eMarketer). Amazon's prompt report is the most detailed today, and Amazon's performance claims for prompts are its own numbers.

What to do now

1. Start with the map, not the budget. If you sell mainly on Amazon in the US, sponsored prompts are already running on your campaigns, so the first job is to read the Prompts report. If you sell direct, ChatGPT and Google are the open doors.
2. Clean the inputs. The fastest win is the same as for organic AI visibility: complete attributes, correct prices, live stock, clear titles. Product feed optimization for AI agents is the working checklist.
3. Run a small, separate test. Put AI-answer placements in their own campaign or budget line, so their results are not averaged into ordinary search or Sponsored Products numbers.
4. Check what the model says about you. Amazon prompts and Gemini explainers are written by a model. Read them. A prompt that promises a feature you do not have is a returns problem waiting to happen.
5. Keep working on the unpaid answer. Where there is no ad product (Claude, Perplexity) or where the ad sits beside a competitor's recommendation, GEO for ecommerce is what moves the result.

What we do not know yet

• How AI-answer ads are priced against each other. OpenAI, Google and Walmart publish no rate cards for these formats.
• When Walmart's Sparky ads and Google's new AI Mode formats leave testing, and in which countries.
• Whether Meta will sell placements inside Muse.
• How much of a shopper's prompt advertisers will ever see. Today the answer, on every platform, is very little.

We will update this page as these change. For the week-by-week log, see AI commerce news, and for everything on paid visibility, the Retail Media & Ads topic.

FAQ

Does ChatGPT have ads?

Yes. Since 9 February 2026 ChatGPT has shown labelled ads below some answers for logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise are ad-free. As of 21 October 2026 ads run in 89 countries.

How do you advertise on ChatGPT?

Through OpenAI's Ads Manager at ads.openai.com, opened in beta to US businesses on 5 May 2026, or through an agency partner. Merchants can create product ads from a catalog file, with each product flagged as ads-eligible. Access is verified and rolled out gradually.

How much do ChatGPT ads cost?

OpenAI has not published a rate card. Early 2026 reports cited a $200,000 minimum and about $60 per thousand views. By April the pilot minimum was $50,000 and prices as low as $25 per thousand views were reported. The self-serve Ads Manager added cost-per-click bidding in May 2026.

Are there ads in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. Search and Shopping ads have run in AI Overviews in the US since late 2024 and in 11 more English-language markets since December 2025. Standard ads serve in AI Mode in the US. The newer AI Mode formats (Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers) were in testing as of May 2026, and Direct Offers has been in pilot since January 2026.

Does Perplexity have ads?

No new ones. Perplexity stopped taking new advertisers and said in February 2026 that it has no plans for more advertising.

Can you pay to be recommended by an AI assistant?

No platform sells the organic recommendation. You can pay for a labelled slot beside it on ChatGPT, Google, Amazon and, in tests, Walmart. What the assistant recommends on its own still depends on your product data, reviews and reputation.