Amazon sells ChatGPT ads as OpenAI bans rival advertisers

By Zara Kincaid · 2026-09-11

Two platforms, one ad slot, split control

Amazon Ads and OpenAI announced a managed advertising integration on 10 September, giving select US brands the ability to place ads inside ChatGPT conversations through Amazon's demand-side platform.^[1] The division of labour is precise: Amazon DSP handles campaign setup and optimisation, and OpenAI controls delivery and decides which advertisers and categories may run.

Delta Vacations is among the first brands in the US-only pilot, testing conversational ad placements inside ChatGPT.^[1] Katrin Koenig, President of Delta Vacations, said the partnership aims to help travellers discover vacation possibilities and engage with relevant experiences within ChatGPT Ads.

Chris Conetta, Director of Omnichannel Supply at Amazon DSP, said conversational ads represent a fast-growing engagement opportunity for brands to reach audiences where they already spend time.^[1] That framing positions ChatGPT as inventory, much as display networks treated websites in the early 2000s.

How the ad format actually works

Ads appear below ChatGPT's responses and include the advertiser's name, logo, headline, description, a landing page link and a creative image asset.^[3] Advertisers can buy on cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC), optimising for reach or direct response within the same conversational session.

Retail advertisers get an additional tool. Product feed campaigns let retailers upload a structured catalogue and automatically generate ad titles, images and prices at scale, without building creative assets individually.^[4] That pipeline will look familiar to anyone who has run Google Shopping or Meta Advantage Plus catalogue campaigns, though reporting granularity inside a chat interface is a different problem.

What advertisers cannot yet see clearly is how ChatGPT attribution handles a conversation that spans several exchanges before a click. OpenAI's help documentation describes basic CPM and CPC metrics but does not detail view-through windows or multi-touch attribution rules.

OpenAI tightens its policy the same day

Also on 10 September, OpenAI published version 1.6 of its Advertising Policies, adding explicit language that gives OpenAI the right to decline or remove any advertiser or category whose campaigns conflict with its "advertising principles, business interests, or competitive position."^[2] That clause is broad enough to cover rival AI image generators, audio tools or other products OpenAI competes with directly.

The policy update lands as OpenAI moves toward a reported US$2.4 billion annual advertising revenue target, according to reporting citing sources familiar with the company's plans. The competitive-conflict clause gives OpenAI a contractual lever to keep rivals off its platform before they build audience there.

Where Australian brands stand today

Australian advertisers are not locked out of ChatGPT Ads entirely. Since 8 September, OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager has been open to advertisers across 52 countries, including Australia, allowing direct campaign setup without a managed-service partner. The Amazon DSP pilot is a separate product: managed service, US-only, with Amazon handling the buying infrastructure.

The gap matters because the Amazon integration carries optimisation logic and audience data that self-serve buyers do not get. An Australian e-commerce brand can run product feed campaigns in ChatGPT today via OpenAI's Ads Manager, but it cannot access the Amazon-managed inventory layer or the consumer insight signals Amazon DSP brings to targeting. That access stays gated behind US eligibility until Amazon expands the pilot.

Zara Kincaid

Zara Kincaid writes about artificial intelligence and search. Her focus is what happens to businesses when the front page of the internet stops being a list of links and starts being an answer.