On 16 September 2026, OpenAI announced a series of updates to ChatGPT Ads that could have significant implications for e-Commerce brands, lead generation businesses and performance marketers.
The announcement goes beyond simply placing ads inside ChatGPT.
OpenAI is introducing Sponsored Agents, AI-powered campaign management, automated creative tools and direct integrations with Shopify and HubSpot.
Here’s what marketers need to know.
1. Sponsored Agents Could Change What Happens After The Click
Perhaps the most interesting announcement is Sponsored Agents.
Rather than an ad simply sending someone to a landing page, users will be able to choose to start a conversation with an advertiser-sponsored agent directly inside ChatGPT.
Imagine someone discovering a dining table through an ad.
Instead of immediately visiting the retailer’s website, they could ask:
"Will this fit in my dining room?"
"How many people can it seat?"
"What’s the difference between this and your other model?"
"How do I look after the finish?"
The Sponsored Agent can help answer those questions before directing the user to the advertiser’s website when they’re ready to take the next step. OpenAI says these conversations will be clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT’s independent responses. Sponsored Agents are currently being tested with selected advertisers in the US.
Why This Matters:
The traditional paid media journey looks something like:
Ad → Landing Page → Browse → Convert
AI could introduce another layer:
Ad → Conversation → Recommendation → Website → Convert
That’s potentially significant.
A landing page has to anticipate the questions somebody might have.
A conversational experience can respond to the specific questions that individual has.
For products or services with longer consideration cycles, complex specifications or lots of choice, that could make the interaction after an ad considerably more useful.
2. You Can Manage Campaigns By Talking To ChatGPT
OpenAI is also bringing natural-language campaign management into ChatGPT.
Advertisers will be able to use the Ads Manager plugin in ChatGPT to create, update and analyse campaigns using prompts.
According to OpenAI, marketers will be able to turn a website or brief into a campaign, understand performance and receive recommendations about what to do next.
In other words, instead of navigating through an advertising interface to perform every task, marketers could increasingly tell the platform what they want.
For example:
"Analyse performance over the last seven days."
"Which campaigns have deteriorated?"
"Create a campaign for our new product range."
"Show me where we’re wasting budget."
The implications extend beyond ChatGPT Ads.
Across performance marketing, we’re moving towards a world where the interface becomes a conversation.
The technical ability to navigate advertising platforms could become less important.
Knowing what questions to ask — and whether the answers make commercial sense — becomes more important.
3. AI-Generated Creative Is Being Built Directly Into Ads Manager
OpenAI is also introducing AI assistance inside Ads Manager.
When creating an ad, advertisers can receive suggested copy and imagery based on their landing page and campaign objective.
Importantly, advertisers remain in control and can review or edit those suggestions before deciding whether to use them.
OpenAI is also introducing optional AI-powered text customisation.
When enabled, the system can adapt existing headlines and descriptions based on the context of a conversation and automatically translate copy into a user’s preferred language.
This could accelerate creative production considerably.
But it also reinforces something we’ve been seeing across paid media.
Producing creative is becoming cheaper. Producing distinctive creative is not.
If every advertiser can generate ten variations from a landing page within seconds, simply generating more assets won’t necessarily create competitive advantage.
The differentiator increasingly becomes the thinking behind them:
- The concept.
- The hook.
- The proposition.
- The customer insight.
- The offer.
- The brand.
AI can dramatically accelerate execution. Marketers still need to give it something worth executing.
4. Shopify Integration Makes Chatgpt Ads Much More Interesting For e-Commerce
For e-Commerce businesses, one of the most significant developments is OpenAI’s integration with Shopify.
US-based Shopify merchants can now use the ChatGPT Ads app to create and manage campaigns.
Because products are already integrated through Shopify Catalogue, merchants can begin running campaigns and tracking performance without rebuilding their entire product infrastructure. OpenAI says the app will expand internationally in markets where ChatGPT Ads are available from 23 September.
This is important because reducing operational friction can accelerate adoption.
Retailers already have their:
Products → Prices → Imagery → Availability → Product information inside Shopify.
Connecting that catalogue directly to an AI-native advertising environment potentially gives ChatGPT much of the structured commerce information required to help users discover products.
For e-Commerce marketers, this is one area we’d be watching particularly closely.
5. HubSpot Becomes OpenAI’s First CRM Partner
Lead generation businesses haven’t been ignored either.
OpenAI has announced HubSpot as its first CRM partner.
Businesses using HubSpot can connect their ChatGPT Ads account, create ads, track performance and follow up on leads within HubSpot using their existing HubSpot context.
That connection is strategically important.
One of the biggest challenges in lead generation advertising is the gap between generating the lead and understanding whether it was any good.
The advertising platform sees a form submission.
The CRM sees what happened next.
Connecting those environments creates the potential for advertising to become much closer to the actual sales outcome.
And that’s where AI advertising becomes considerably more interesting.
6. This Isn’t Another Display Network
It’s tempting to think about ChatGPT Ads using the existing advertising playbook.
Where does the ad appear?
What’s the CPC?
What’s the targeting?
What’s the CTR?
Those questions will obviously matter.
But the bigger opportunity could be the context surrounding the advertising.
People increasingly use AI to research products, compare options, understand complex purchases and narrow down decisions.
That creates a different advertising environment from scrolling through a social feed or typing a three-word search query.
The user may have already explained:
what they’re trying to achieve, what matters to them, what they’re comparing and what questions they still need answered.
That’s potentially extremely valuable context.
The challenge for OpenAI will be introducing commercial experiences without damaging the trust that makes those conversations valuable in the first place.
7. Brands Should Start Thinking About AI Discoverability Now
There’s another consequence that extends beyond paid advertising.
If consumers increasingly use AI platforms to discover and evaluate products, businesses need to think about how easily AI systems can understand their proposition.
That means strong:
- Product data.
- Website structure.
- Product descriptions.
- Pricing and availability information.
- FAQs.
- Reviews and customer evidence.
- Structured data.
- Clear propositions and USPs
The same principle we’ve seen with shopping feeds applies here.
If machines increasingly influence product discovery, giving those machines clean, structured and commercially useful information becomes more important.
What Should Marketers Do Now?
There’s no reason to abandon Google or Meta because ChatGPT Ads exists.
Those platforms have enormous scale, mature optimisation systems and years of advertising infrastructure behind them.
But it would also be a mistake to dismiss AI advertising as another experimental channel.
OpenAI is now building several pieces of an advertising ecosystem simultaneously:
Discovery → Ads → Conversation → Creative → Campaign management → e-Commerce → CRM → Measurement
That’s the important part of this announcement.
ChatGPT Ads is starting to look less like an advertising placement and more like the beginnings of an AI-native advertising platform.
For performance marketers, we’d be doing three things now.
- Understand the channel: Start learning how advertising fits into conversational discovery.
- Prepare your data: Make sure product, customer and conversion information is structured and accessible.
- Test early: When ChatGPT Ads becomes relevant and available to your business, treat it as an incremental acquisition channel and measure what it actually contributes.
The Bigger Shift
Google transformed digital advertising around intent. Meta transformed it around audiences and discovery. AI could introduce something different: advertising built around conversations.
That’s what makes OpenAI’s latest announcement worth paying attention to. The most interesting part isn’t AI generating another headline or image.
It’s the possibility that the journey between "I’m interested" and "I’m ready to buy" increasingly happens through a conversation.
For brands and performance marketers, that could create an entirely new battleground for customer acquisition. And we’re only at the beginning.
Need a fresh perspective? Let’s talk.
At 360 OM, we specialise in helping businesses take their marketing efforts to the next level. Our team stays on top of industry trends, uses data-informed decisions to maximise your ROI, and provides full transparency through comprehensive reports.
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