What ChatGPT ads look like
What the 118,765 ads shown in our capture looked like, and what OpenAI says about ad formats. In our data, every conversation that ended with an ad showed exactly one ad on screen: a text ad or a shopping ad.
Our capture: logged-out ChatGPT, US, Oct 3–4, 2026Updated
Two formats in our data
Our export records the advertiser, the website the ad linked to, the name or product and the headline or price. Ad body text and images were not part of this export, so they are not shown here.
| Format | Ads shown | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Text ad | 99,584 | 83.8% |
| Shopping ad | 19,181 | 16.2% |
Text ads
The median headline was 26 characters long and the longest 50; none of the 99,584 headlines was longer than 50 characters. OpenAI’s Ads API takes a title of 3 to 50 characters and a body of up to 100 characters for its chat card ads (OpenAI developer docs: Ads API reference, Ads).
- TumbleText ad
Tumble | Pet-Friendly, Washable Rugs
Shown 600 times
- EverQuoteText ad
Insurance near you
Shown 493 times
- Rocket MoneyText ad
Cancel unwanted subscriptions
Shown 484 times
- Runway AIText ad
Make a video in 2 min
Shown 382 times
- DoorDashText ad
DoorDash: Food, Grocery and Retail
Shown 335 times
- Xfinity SpecialText ad
Xfinity® Internet deals from $40/mo
Shown 308 times
Shopping ads
18,758 of the 19,181 shopping ads showed a price in dollars. The other 423 are ads that our export labels as text ads but that showed only a price where a headline would be (421 in pounds, 2 in euros); we count them as shopping ads. The median dollar price was $94.09; half of the dollar prices fell between $35.00 and $268.00. OpenAI’s developer docs describe product-feed ads: advertisers upload a product catalog, and an ad template fills in the product details when an ad is shown (OpenAI developer docs: Product Feeds).
- GrouponShopping ad
Things to Do Near You
$47.20
Shown 52 times
- VistaPrint USShopping ad
Gift Certificates
$9.99
Shown 49 times
- atlaspetcompany.comShopping ad
Lifetime Harness
$100
Shown 45 times
- SharkNinja OperatingShopping ad
Shark Cordless Stick Vacuum Clean & Empty System in Rotator White/Peacock Blue | BU3521 | SharkNinja
$399.99
Shown 44 times
- llbean.comShopping ad
L.L.Bean Hikelite Four-Season Carbon Hiking Poles Carbon Matte/Green Transparent, Nylon/Aluminium
$170
Shown 43 times
- ChewyShopping ad
Ibiyaya The Beast Dog Jogging Stroller, Flash Gray
$530
Shown 41 times
One ad per answer
No conversation in our capture showed two ads on screen. In 37,730 conversations (31.8% of those with an ad shown) ChatGPT’s page data also carried a second ad that never appeared, and in 720 a first ad was replaced by another before it appeared. OpenAI’s help center says that during the test you may see one or more ad units below a response, and that a unit may feature one or more items from an advertiser, or multiple advertisers (OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT).
Ads that linked through ad-tech services
Some ads linked through an advertising platform’s click address before the advertiser’s site. OpenAI names Criteo and StackAdapt among its technology partners (OpenAI: New ways to buy ChatGPT ads).
| Click address | Ads shown | Share |
|---|---|---|
| stackadapt.com (StackAdapt) | 1,407 | 1.18% |
| criteo.com (Criteo) | 1,251 | 1.05% |
| doubleclick.net | 435 | 0.37% |
| dartsearch.net | 368 | 0.31% |
What OpenAI says
Facts from OpenAI’s own pages and reputable press, each linked. Our data cannot confirm them beyond what is described above.
| Topic | Fact |
|---|---|
| Placement and label | Ads can appear below the end of a response. They are labeled as sponsored and visually separated from ChatGPT’s response. Source: OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT |
| Who sees them | Ads may appear for users on the Free and Go plans; Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts do not have ads, and ads are not shown to accounts identified as belonging to people under 18. Ads shown in logged-out experiences are appropriate for all audiences. Source: OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT |
| Where they do not appear | Temporary Chats do not show ads, ads do not appear in the ChatGPT Atlas browser during the test, and ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics such as personal health, mental health or politics. Source: OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT |
| How an ad is chosen | OpenAI says its system considers the context and intent of the current conversation, the ad’s landing page, title, copy, advertiser-provided context hints and targeting selections, and, with ad personalization on, select signals from the wider ChatGPT experience. Source: OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT |
| Ad building blocks | In the Ads API an ad is either a chat card (title, body, image and destination URL; images at least 640 × 640 pixels) or a product-ad template filled from a product feed. Source: OpenAI developer docs: Ads API overview; OpenAI developer docs: Ads API reference, Ads |
| Images beside generated images | In October 2026 OpenAI announced visual display ads that appear alongside images users ask ChatGPT to generate, starting in the U.S. Source: TechCrunch, Oct 5, 2026: OpenAI launches visual ads that appear alongside image generation results |
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 rate
How does your brand show up in ChatGPT and AI search?
We look at the answers and ads shown for your category and where your brand appears in them.