U.S. advertisers using Amazon's demand-side platform can now purchase ad inventory inside ChatGPT without opening a separate account with OpenAI. Amazon announced the partnership with OpenAI on September 10, allowing select U.S. brands advertising through Amazon Ads, including its Demand-Side Platform, to run campaigns directly inside ChatGPT.
How the Buying Arrangement Works
The partnership enables advertisers to expand their Amazon Ads campaigns with a conversational ad experience on ChatGPT, with select advertisers in the U.S. currently testing the arrangement as part of a pilot. The feature is available as a managed service, meaning Amazon Ads representatives will help advertisers build and manage their campaigns and offer "context hints" to match ads with relevant topics, conversations, and keywords.
Amazon will be responsible for setting up and managing campaigns, while OpenAI's ad platform will determine when and where ads show up. That division of responsibility is a structural distinction, not an operational detail. Amazon controls the buying relationship and campaign management layer; OpenAI retains authority over ad delivery and placement inside ChatGPT through its own systems.
Ads appear as designated text or image units placed below ChatGPT responses. They are presented separately from ChatGPT's responses and clearly labelled as sponsored content. OpenAI introduced cost-per-click pricing earlier this year, adding a billing model that charges only when a user clicks an ad, alongside its original cost-per-thousand-impressions structure, both of which are available through the Amazon DSP integration. Amazon is also offering product feed ads that automatically generate creative assets from advertisers' existing product catalogues.
Advertisers participating in the pilot will receive aggregated performance data covering impressions, clicks, cost per result, CPM, and CPC metrics.
Delta Vacations Among the First Participants
ChatGPT Ads inventory is available through Amazon DSP as a managed service, with Delta Vacations among the select group of U.S. advertisers participating in the pilot. Katrin Koenig, president of Delta Vacations, said in a statement that the integration allows the brand to "leverage deep consumer insights to inform how and when Delta Vacations appear within ChatGPT Ads experiences."
Chris Conetta, Director of Omnichannel Supply at Amazon DSP, described conversational ads as "the fastest growing engagement opportunity for brands to reach new and existing audiences."
OpenAI's Ad Business at the Time of the Deal
In less than 200 days after launch, ChatGPT Ads reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate, with the platform now used by tens of thousands of advertisers. OpenAI announced that milestone on September 1, according to its blog post, "A milestone in expanding access to AI." ChatGPT ads have launched in more than 40 countries, with OpenAI opening its self-serve ad platform to marketers in India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
OpenAI is preparing for what is expected to be a massive initial public offering and is under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation to investors. The company describes advertising as one pillar of its diversified business model, alongside consumer subscriptions, enterprise offerings, and usage-based APIs.
OpenAI's ChatGPT ads program already had more than 50 ad tech partners before Amazon joined. OpenAI had previously established retail media integrations with networks operated by Target and Albertsons. OpenAI's decision to link with an established DSP is consistent with its scaling strategy, though its initial choice of Amazon as partner is notable given that the company had reportedly discussed a deal with The Trade Desk, an independent rival of Amazon's, earlier this year.
Scale and Scope of Amazon's Advertising Business
Amazon's DSP is one of the largest programmatic advertising platforms in the world, connecting brands to audiences across a vast network of publishers and owned properties. By plugging ChatGPT into that infrastructure, Amazon gives its existing advertiser base a direct channel to OpenAI's user base, which stood at approximately 900 million weekly active users as of early 2026.
Partnering with Amazon gives OpenAI access to a much larger group of advertisers who could move the company closer to its ambitious $2.5 billion ad revenue goal. For Amazon, the arrangement extends its DSP's supply footprint without requiring a commerce-level integration with OpenAI, a boundary Amazon has maintained as it seeks to protect its own e-commerce data and customer experience.
The pilot also has potential reach beyond brands that sell on Amazon directly. The integration could broaden ChatGPT's appeal to nonendemic Amazon advertisers, companies that don't necessarily sell products on Amazon but already use Amazon DSP to reach audiences elsewhere.
What This Means for Marketers
For advertisers already operating within Amazon DSP, the practical implication is reduced friction: reaching ChatGPT's user base becomes an extension of an existing workflow rather than a separate platform commitment. Campaign managers familiar with Amazon's buying interface, audience tools, and reporting dashboards can apply that infrastructure to conversational ad placements. However, because OpenAI controls ad delivery and placement, advertisers should account for the fact that performance outcomes inside ChatGPT will depend on OpenAI's systems, not Amazon's optimization logic.
OpenAI has stated that ChatGPT advertisements are always clearly marked and do not influence the answers the chatbot provides, and that advertisers do not receive access to people's private conversations.
