ChatGPT ads vs Google AI Mode ads
Two of our own captures side by side: ChatGPT (Oct 3–4, 2026) and Google AI Mode (Oct 10–11, 2026), both from US connections and signed out. They were run differently, so read the comparison as a description of each capture, not a contest. The AI Mode data is published on aimodeadlibrary.com.
Our capture: logged-out ChatGPT, US, Oct 3–4, 2026Updated
Side by side
The AI Mode figures are computed from the AI Mode library’s data files; the ChatGPT figures from our ChatGPT capture.
| ChatGPT | Google AI Mode | |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | Logged-out ChatGPT, US, Oct 3–4, 2026 | Signed-out Google AI Mode searches, US, Oct 10–11, 2026 |
| How each question was asked | New conversation; the question, then a follow-up asking for a sponsored ad if none had appeared; run once more if it ended without an ad | One search per question (1 question searched more than once) |
| Questions asked | 123,613 questions, one recorded conversation each | 664 searches for 663 questions |
| Answers with ads | 118,765 (after a follow-up; not a natural rate) | 197 questions (29.7%) |
| Ads per answer with ads | 1 shown (no answer showed two) | median 2, mean 10.3, up to 40 |
| Ads recorded | 118,765 | 2,036 |
| Text ads | 99,584 (83.8%) | 179 (8.8%) |
| Shopping / product ads | 19,181 (16.2%) | 1,857 (91.2%) |
| Advertisers | 5,708 | 681 (an “unknown seller” placeholder left out) |
Advertisers seen in both
103 advertisers appeared in both captures: 21 matched by website domain, 82 by seller name where AI Mode lists no domain (only 105 of its 681 advertisers come with a domain). That is 15.1% of the AI Mode advertisers and 1.8% of the ChatGPT advertisers.
| Advertiser | ChatGPT ads shown | AI Mode ads |
|---|---|---|
| temu.com | 2,744 | 51 |
| Nerdwallet | 1,442 | 2 |
| Angi | 1,004 | 4 |
| llbean.com | 949 | 13 |
| Thumbtack | 888 | 2 |
| Wayfair | 770 | 67 |
| Quince | 701 | 22 |
| Chewy | 632 | 51 |
| nike.com | 412 | 2 |
| Home Depot | 409 | 29 |
| scheels.com | 355 | 4 |
| Cybernews | 258 | 1 |
| Goldbelly | 247 | 9 |
| Monday.com | 234 | 2 |
| Capital One | 219 | 1 |
| Empire Today | 202 | 1 |
| AT&T Mobility | 186 | 1 |
| bestbuy.com | 183 | 36 |
| Lowe's | 179 | 37 |
| allmodern.com | 173 | 2 |
| Spectrum | 173 | 1 |
| Etsy | 148 | 3 |
| Netwrix | 148 | 1 |
| SHOPAPPLIANCES.COM | 128 | 5 |
| Milan Laser Hair Removal | 120 | 1 |
| Tuft and Paw | 103 | 1 |
| Ring | 100 | 8 |
| backcountry.com | 99 | 4 |
| Eventbrite | 96 | 1 |
| Pura | 95 | 35 |
Top 30 of 103, by ChatGPT ads shown.
What differs
- Answers with ads in AI Mode often carried many product listings (91% of its ads); every ChatGPT answer with an ad in our capture showed a single ad on screen, 84% of them text ads.
- AI Mode showed ads without being asked; ChatGPT ads in our capture came after a follow-up message asking for one, so the share of answers with ads cannot be compared.
- The captures were a week apart and used different question sets, so advertiser overlap is a floor, not a measure of who advertises on both.
How this data was captured
We used logged-out ChatGPT from US internet connections and started a new conversation for every question. Message 1 was the question. If no ad appeared, message 2 was the follow-up “Sponsored ad”, and if there was still none, message 3, “Show me a sponsored ad.”, was a last try. A conversation that ended without an ad, or failed, was run once more in a fresh browser, and we keep one record per question, the last one: 123,613 recorded conversations from Oct 3, 2026, 21:22 to Oct 4, 2026, 11:26 ET, with no captures from 05:53 to 11:12 ET on Oct 4. Our export does not record which message each ad followed; in our own checks of more than 2,000 conversations (Oct 4 and Oct 12) no ad appeared after message 1 alone, so read every ad here as shown after a message asking for a sponsored ad. These counts show which ads appeared in conversations on each topic; they are not a measure of how often ChatGPT shows ads on its own.
Only ads drawn on screen count as shown. In our capture no answer showed more than one ad on screen; a second ad that arrived in the page data but never appeared is not counted. Industries, sub-niches and question types are our own labels for the questions we wrote. Independent; not affiliated with OpenAI. Full methodWhy this is not an ad rateWhat the ads looked like
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