What to Know About ChatGPT Ads and Google Agentic Commerce

AI chatbots are already changing how people use the internet—how they work, research, and shop. Naturally, the introduction of ads into these services was a matter of “when”, not “if.”

With recent announcements from both Google and OpenAI, it turns out that “when” is now. Ads are beginning to appear in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode. But there are still plenty of questions to answer.

Some are practical: how will ads in AI work? How can advertisers deploy them? Others are bigger-picture: What do these ads mean for other forms of marketing, like paid search and SEO? And will users trust them?

In this blog, we’ll attempt to tackle some of these important questions.

What Are ChatGPT Ads?

OpenAI, the company behind the industry-leading large language model (LLM), ChatGPT, began experimenting with ads in February 2026.

The format is still early in its development, but the concept is relatively straightforward. When a conversation touches on products or services, a sponsored placement may appear below the LLM’s response based on the topic or past conversations the users have had with ChatGPT.

In OpenAI’s initial announcement, it made a few things clear:

• Ads will not influence ChatGPT’s answers to user queries and will be clearly labeled as such
• Advertisers will not see the contents of user conversations, and user data will not be sold to advertisers
• Users can turn off personalization and delete any data used for ad targeting

Initial testing of these ads is limited to ChatGPT’s Free and Go tiers, while higher-tier plans remain ad-free. OpenAI has also stated that ads do not influence the model’s responses and that advertisers do not gain access to the contents of individual conversations.

For now, however, ChatGPT ads remain a limited experiment—and they’re not a tool that advertisers can hope to deploy just yet. OpenAI has not released a self-serve advertising platform comparable to Google Ads, and advertisers cannot currently purchase placements directly inside ChatGPT. The existing ads are part of controlled product tests run by OpenAI. If the company expands the program, it will likely introduce an advertising interface where brands can submit creative and targeting parameters.

What Are Google’s AI Mode Ads?

For the 2025 holiday season, Google began expanding AI Mode—the Gemini-powered version of the SERP—into a conversational shopping environment. Gemini can already analyze questions and surface products using Google’s Shopping Graph, which contains more than 50 billion product listings from retailers around the web.

Users can ask the AI Mode assistant to compare products, identify options that meet specific requirements, or narrow down choices based on price, features, or other constraints. Now Google is introducing ads into that ecosystem through a pilot program called Direct Offers.

Much like OpenAI’s ad test, they work by allowing the AI to detect moments when users may have higher purchase intent, then surfacing an ad banner alongside the chat. The ad content is pulled from promotional deals—like discounts or special pricing—within existing Google Ads Shopping or Performance Max campaigns.

Direct Offers are currently running as an Alpha test with select advertisers, so brands don’t yet have the choice to opt into these ads. That may change in the near future.

These ads are only one piece of a larger AI shopping puzzle, which Google is calling “agentic commerce.” The search giant envisions a world where AI agents contribute to every step of the online shopping process, and it’s positioning itself to dominate that world.

To further this effort, Google is also rolling out merchant-facing tools like Business Agent, which allows brands to deploy brand-specific AI assistants on their Google Business Profile, and Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX), which enables assistants to be embedded directly onto your website or app.

What Do Ads in AI Mean for SEM?

Through a search engine marketing (SEM) lens, the introduction of Direct Offers may not be as jarring as it seems.

For some time, Google’s campaign options have been evolving away from simple queries+results towards more complicated user intent determinations. It’s unsurprising to learn that these promotional ads will be pulled from Performance Max campaigns. These campaigns already fold search, shopping, display, and other placements together—and they already rely heavily on AI inferences to decide the “who, when, and where” of ad delivery.

In that sense, ads inside AI interfaces may end up functioning less like a completely new channel and more like a natural evolution of existing campaign styles.

As more shopping-related traffic shifts from traditional search queries to agentic conversations, we may see Google build out campaigns specifically for AI placements. And the simple promotional banners that OpenAI and Google are currently testing should be seen as just an opening salvo—it’s hard to believe that there aren’t plans for more robust visual formats to follow.

Will Users Trust LLMs with Ads?

This is the big issue that companies like OpenAI are currently keen on solving. There’s no question that users trust AI chatbots enough to inform their purchase decisions. But whether ads change that trust relationship remains to be seen.

If users come to think of LLMs as no different than search engines, they may be unfazed by them. Google launched as a search engine in 1998, and by 2000, it was already offering paid search ads, so users have long been willing to put their trust in the results Google delivered, regardless of them being accompanied by ads.

The main issue platforms will need to manage is transparency. Users need to understand what information is generated by the assistant and what content is sponsored. As long as ads remain clearly labeled and separate from chatbot responses, they are unlikely to feel dramatically different from the sponsored placements users already encounter in search results today.

Be Ready For the Next Steps

Advertisers are still in a waiting period before they can begin to deploy these early LLM ads. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be paying close attention to developments and readying themselves to compete once they become an option.

Because AI is only as good as the data it can draw from, advertisers should already be making sure they have all their ducks in a row. A good place to start is a checkup of your SEO/GEO health: is your product and pricing data clean and structured? Does your website address key product questions?

The same applies to your Google Ads efforts, particularly within Performance Max. Participation will depend heavily on the quality of the underlying commerce infrastructure already connected to Google: product feeds, pricing data, promotions, and Merchant Center integrations. Brands that already maintain strong Shopping feeds are likely to be best positioned if AI-driven shopping environments gain wider adoption. It’ll also be helpful to get familiar with Google’s new “agentic commerce” tools, like Business Agent.

If you’re looking for a marketing partner that’s ready to tackle this next evolution in digital marketing, reach out to the OuterBox team. With expertise in SEO, GEO, and all paid media channels, we’re primed to keep our partners ahead of the curve no matter what comes next.