OpenAI Adds Visual Ad Format and Measurement Tools to ChatGPT

OpenAI announced on October 5, 2026, a new visual ad format in ChatGPT, alongside expanded measurement tools and partnerships and brand-suitability evaluation pilots with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science. Testing of the new format will begin later in October in the US with an initial group of advertisers.

The format uses images showing product inspiration, product usage, or the experiences products make possible, and is designed to let people discover brands and understand what makes an offering distinctive. OpenAI said it creates new opportunities for advertisers to tell their story through images. The company will initially test the format during image generation in ChatGPT; ads will be clearly labeled and remain separate from the image being created, and OpenAI states that, as with its other ad formats, advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.

OpenAI said ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people each week, a reach it described as making ChatGPT the world’s largest AI-native consumer platform. The company said advertising allows it to serve a much larger market than subscriptions alone, and framed the updates as consistent with its ads principles that ChatGPT’s answers stay independent, conversations stay private, and users remain in control of their experience.

Expanded Measurement Tools and Partners

OpenAI’s pixel and Conversions API solutions measure actions such as purchases, leads, installs, and sign-ups, and integrations with Hightouch, Tealium, and LiveRamp let advertisers send conversion data from their existing systems to ChatGPT Ads. An Event Quality Score helps advertisers assess the quality of those signals and identify opportunities to improve them, according to a companion post on the OpenAI Ads Blog published the same day.

The company now supports attribution partners enabling Conversions API, reporting, and click attribution, naming AppsFlyer, Triple Whale, Adjust, DV Rockerbox, Northbeam, Branch, Singular, Kochava, Airbridge, and Tenjin, plus full-funnel and advanced measurement partners Fospha, Measured, and INCRMNTAL. OpenAI is also partnering with Haus, Measured, and WorkMagic to explore geo-based incrementality experiments, work it described as still in its early stages, and is in early-stage testing with Kantar and Cint to measure the impact of ChatGPT Ads on brand resonance metrics as it experiments with new placements.

For reporting, advertisers can select a click-through attribution window that fits their buying cycle and include a one-day view-through window to measure conversions that follow an impression without a click; OpenAI said these settings control attribution in reports and do not change how campaigns optimize. A separate advanced conversion optimization feature learns from eligible click-through and view-through conversions for an advertiser’s selected goal.

OpenAI and several partners also disclosed early performance findings. According to DV Rockerbox, WeightWatchers’ attributed cost per acquisition on ChatGPT Ads was 15.3% lower than its blended paid-search benchmark. WorkMagic reported statistically significant lift for wellness brand Dose, with 67% of incremental purchases coming from net-new customers, and its geo-lift study estimated 2.3 times more incremental orders for Dose than last-click attribution captured. According to Triple Whale, 93% of Portland Leather’s visitors from ChatGPT Ads were new. In OpenAI’s own early analysis of global campaigns optimized for deeper-funnel outcomes, 52.7% of eligible one-day view-through conversions occurred within an hour of the matched ad impression.

Brand Suitability Pilots and Placement Policies

OpenAI is developing brand-suitability evaluation pilots with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science under which the independent partners assess how OpenAI’s brand-safety standards are applied in a controlled testing environment, without accessing private user conversations. The company said the goal is to give advertisers greater transparency into how the safeguards work while protecting conversation privacy.

“As advertising expands into AI-native environments, marketers need confidence that brand safety protections are durable, consistent, and built to operate at scale,” said Lidiane Jones, CEO of Integral Ad Science. DoubleVerify (DV ) CEO Mark Zagorski said, “ChatGPT is creating a fundamentally different advertising environment, where context is defined by the conversation itself rather than a page or video.”

OpenAI’s placement guardrails assess whether a conversation is appropriate for advertising, aiming to keep ads out of emotionally vulnerable, sensitive, or otherwise unsuitable contexts, with automated review, human oversight, and ongoing monitoring used to identify and address policy violations. Negative Phrases, a control for narrow placement requirements specific to a brand’s own policies, are now available to qualifying advertisers.

The company’s advertising policies, updated September 10, 2026, define sensitive user contexts, including emotionally reliant contexts, mental and personal health conversations, and sensitive user journeys, as ineligible for ads, and exclude brand-unsafe contexts such as child safety, political content, and regulated goods including gambling and tobacco products. During the initial test period, ads are primarily limited to consumer verticals such as lifestyle and household goods, local services, travel and experiences, and digital products or education, with financial services, healthcare and medicine, and legal services rolling out gradually under manual, case-by-case approval. The policies describe a review process at three levels: advertiser eligibility when an account signs up, ad creative and landing pages when an ad is uploaded, and placement as a final step before an ad runs.

The October 5 updates follow OpenAI’s September 16 announcement of tests of Sponsored Agents, which let users start a clearly labeled conversation with a business-sponsored agent after clicking an ad, along with new AI creative tools in Ads Manager and integrations with HubSpot as its first CRM partner and Shopify as its first ecommerce partner.

OpenAI said it will continue to evolve its ad platform with new formats and capabilities. Businesses can sign up for ads at ads.openai.com.