ChatGPT begins showing ads while generating images

ChatGPT now shows ads to some users while it generates images. A banner reads "Here's an ad while we create your image," and the ad goes away when the image is done, Search Engine Roundtable reported on Tuesday. Marketplace Pulse founder Juozas Kaziukėnas spotted the format. He said it showed him a pet food ad even though his conversation had nothing to do with pets. OpenAI is also reportedly close to launching a dashboard that shows businesses how often ChatGPT mentions them. Together, these moves show the company building out an ad business that is less than a year old.seroundtable.com

Ads during image generation

OpenAI announced the visual format in early October and said it would first test it during image generation for users on the Free and Go plans. It said the ads would be clearly labeled and kept separate from the image being created. The company's help center says users may see several images from a single advertiser while their picture renders. Selecting the ad opens the advertiser's link. A related multi-image format entered open beta in Ads Manager on October 26. Advertisers upload four to six square images for it.openai.com+2

Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts remain ad-free. Ads also don't appear near sensitive topics like health and politics. OpenAI said last week that ChatGPT Ads now runs in 89 countries and that more than 100,000 advertisers have used the platform.openai.com+1

Tracking brand mentions

According to Digiday, OpenAI is testing an analytics dashboard that counts how often a business shows up in ChatGPT's answers. It also counts how many clicks those mentions send to the business's site. The tool sits inside a Business Hub that hasn't launched yet. Businesses would get access by answering a prompt to "Claim your business in ChatGPT." Claiming a listing also unlocks a business agent that answers customer questions. Tubefilter noted that the dashboard could draw spending from answer engine optimization, a growing field where marketers try to influence what chatbots recommend.tubefilter.com+1

Trust over advertisers

Benji Shomair, OpenAI's VP of monetization, spoke at LUMA Partners' Digital Media Summit in New York on Monday, November 9. He said the company's mission "actually requires [us] to build an ad business," AdExchanger reported. Its reasoning is that far more people will use ChatGPT than will ever pay for it. Shomair said OpenAI ranks its priorities as user trust first, then user value, then advertiser value. The company has brought on more than 50 ad tech, measurement and agency partners.adexchanger.com

"There are places where I think our partners would like us to do certain things that we just can't," Shomair said. He described ChatGPT as a more intimate setting than any place ads have appeared before. He also said answers "are separate from the ads and not influenced by the ads."