OpenAI is experimenting with a new ad experience inside ChatGPT that treats a click as the start of a conversation, not a trip to a landing page. The AI company has shown select advertisers an early version of an AI-native ad format, and Wayfair is among the initial testers. Instead of routing users to a website, the ad’s call-to-action opens a branded chat where the advertiser’s own AI agent can respond, qualify interest and guide the user.
How the format works
The new unit lets a brand attach a business AI agent to an ad. A user who taps the call-to-action — one version shown to advertisers says “Chat to us” — is taken into a ChatGPT conversation with the brand’s agent rather than leaving the app. That makes the ad itself an entry point into a branded dialogue, not just a prompt to visit a site.
This is a step beyond the response ads OpenAI currently places under ChatGPT answers for free and Go plan users. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar described those existing placements as a “basic starting point” during Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia and Technology Conference on September 8. She added that early indications suggest what a more AI-native ad format could look like, and that the company has not yet “really launched a format that feels truly endemic to AI.”
Why it matters for advertisers
The idea is similar to Meta ads that send people into WhatsApp, according to Farhad Divecha, group CEO of Accuracast. It creates a direct line to a prospect, and lets advertisers qualify whether someone needs service, sales help or a nudge to a specific purchase page.
- Lower-friction handoff: The click starts a conversation instead of requiring a separate site visit.
- AI-assisted qualification: Brand agents can handle questions and route high-intent users more efficiently.
- Data and attribution questions: Keeping users inside ChatGPT may feel like a shopping experience, but retailers still want first-party data from their owned sites.
- Holiday timing: The test arrives as marketers face rising costs and flat returns on platforms such as Google and Meta.
Shamsul Chowdhury, svp of paid media at Zeno Group, said OpenAI’s move to open up ad products makes sense, but the return on ChatGPT ads hasn’t been there for most advertisers so far. The new format could offer an in-platform shopping experience, though the key question is whether the agent experience is seamless enough to justify shifting budget.
For brands considering a pilot, the unit is less about replacing search or social spend and more about testing whether a conversational handoff can improve qualification. A useful first step is to audit the questions customers already ask a brand’s support or sales teams. Those high-intent questions are likely the ones an AI agent should handle inside the ad, while complex or high-stakes queries should still route to a human or a dedicated page.
The bigger picture
ChatGPT ads have been live for about seven months, and the consensus among advertisers is still cautious: promising, but too early for firm conclusions. Until performance improves, investment is likely to remain experimental or incremental.
OpenAI is still searching for the signature ad format that fits an AI assistant, much as Google had the text link, Facebook the News Feed ad and TikTok the in-feed video. A click-to-chat unit may be the early version of that, because it is built around conversation rather than search or scrolling. The next test is whether advertisers can turn those conversations into measurable outcomes.
Source: Digiday
