ChatGPT users who encounter an ad can now choose to continue that interaction inside a separate, AI-powered conversation with the advertising business. OpenAI confirmed on September 16 in its "Reimagining Advertising with AI" blog post that it is testing Sponsored Agents, which let people start a conversation with a business-sponsored agent after clicking an ad in ChatGPT.
What Sponsored Agents Do
After viewing a relevant ad, a user can choose to begin a clearly labelled conversation with an advertiser's agent. Within that experience, users can ask questions, explain their needs, and receive information intended to help them determine whether an offering is a good fit. Sponsored Agents insert an additional conversational layer between the ad impression and the external website. A user who encounters an eligible ChatGPT ad can start a conversation with the advertiser's sponsored agent, ask follow-up questions, and then move to the advertiser's website if the interaction becomes useful.
OpenAI says Sponsored Agents will be clearly labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT's independent answers and from the user's original conversation, an important product boundary because the sponsored interaction is designed to become more conversational without being presented as part of the assistant's normal response. The agent cannot alter or influence what ChatGPT returns organically, and advertisers receive aggregated performance data, not raw transcripts.
OpenAI began testing Sponsored Agents on September 16. The format is currently being tested with select advertisers in the United States. OpenAI is also accepting expressions of interest from businesses that want to participate in future Sponsored Agent testing.
AI Campaign Tools Inside Ads Manager
Alongside the Sponsored Agents pilot, OpenAI confirmed it is making it easier to create ads by writing prompts in ChatGPT Work, while also making Ads Manager more powerful with new AI creative tools.
OpenAI is extending Ads Manager with AI-assisted campaign creation, creative generation, performance analysis, and optional contextual rewriting. Advertisers can use natural-language prompts to draft a campaign directly from a landing page or creative brief, without navigating a conventional ads interface. Advertisers remain in control: they can review and edit suggestions before choosing whether to add them to a campaign.
OpenAI also confirmed a new opt-in text customization feature. When enabled, it adapts existing ad headlines and descriptions to fit the context of a conversation and automatically translates copy into a user's preferred language.
HubSpot and Shopify Now Connected to ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI named HubSpot as its first CRM partner and Shopify as its first ecommerce partner, bringing ChatGPT Ads into the tools businesses already use.
Starting September 16, businesses managing their customers in HubSpot can connect a ChatGPT Ads account, create ads, track performance, and follow up on leads directly in HubSpot. The HubSpot integration lets customers create campaigns, compare ChatGPT Ads with channels including Google and LinkedIn, and attribute contacts or deals to ChatGPT spending.
U.S.-based Shopify merchants can use the new ChatGPT Ads app in the Shopify App Store to create and manage ChatGPT ad campaigns. Products are already integrated through Shopify Catalogue, so merchants can start running ads and tracking performance immediately. The app will be available internationally in markets where ChatGPT Ads are available starting September 23.
Platform Context
ChatGPT Ads reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days after launch. The platform is now used by tens of thousands of advertisers and continues to expand globally. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education subscription tiers do not carry ads. OpenAI has stated that ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers and that user conversations are kept private from advertisers.
Implications for Advertisers and Marketers
Marketers running campaigns in ChatGPT now have two distinct paths to manage activity: directly through OpenAI's Ads Manager or natively inside HubSpot and Shopify. The Sponsored Agents format changes the post-click experience, requiring advertisers to think about how their AI agent is configured, what it can answer, what it defers, and how it routes users to a website, as a distinct part of their campaign architecture. Businesses already using Shopify Catalogue for organic product visibility in ChatGPT may find the transition to paid campaign management more straightforward, given that the product feed integration is already in place.
OpenAI's next phase of growth will bring ChatGPT Ads to more markets and introduce additional formats, objectives, buying options, and measurement capabilities.
