Hey, maybe ChatGPT is actually going to have an ads business after all (to Sam Altman’s chagrin!). Today, OpenAI unveiled that ChatGPT has launched shopping research, “a new experience in ChatGPT that does the research to help you find the right products.”
Users can ask for things like “the best TV on a budget” or “the best crockpot for chili” and get in-depth comparisons and product breakdowns. From there, you can fine-tune the results based on price, style, size, and more.
Why Does This Matter?
If ads ever arrive in ChatGPT, this seems like the most likely surface for them. But it may not look the way you think. Hear us out.
On the Conversations with Tyler podcast from earlier this month, Altman basically says ads in this type of experience are anathema to ChatGPT. He said:
Ads on a Google search are dependent on Google doing badly. If it was giving you the best answer, there’d be no reason ever to buy an ad above it. You’re like, “That thing is not quite aligned with me.”
However—that’s only true if you’re imagining literal ads for the product you’re searching for. What if they instead served indirect or contextually related ads?
For example: You search for a TV. You don’t get a TV ad. You get ads for speakers, or an Apple TV, or a mounting bracket, or anything adjacent to the product you’re researching.
This kind of ad experience would work because it doesn’t interfere with ChatGPT’s core promise: delivering the best possible answer to the user’s direct question. It keeps the primary recommendation “pure” while monetizing the edges.
Experts React:
Altman, in the same podcast, continued to express skepticism about traditional ads, saying:
COWEN: Ads. How important a revenue source will ads be for OpenAI?
ALTMAN: Again, there’s a kind of ad that I think would be really bad, like the one we talked about. There are kinds of ads that I think would be very good or pretty good to do. I expect it’s something we’ll try at some point. I do not think it is our biggest revenue opportunity.
Clearly, he sees commerce as the bigger play. But he’s also quietly laying the groundwork for some ads. Just not the search or display style ones.
Our Take:
Altman keeps shrugging off ads while simultaneously signaling they may be closer than ever, no? “I expect it’s something we’ll try” is an actual commitment, and follows some other recent statements that seem to suggest maybe the ice is thawing. The caveat is that the format has to be right—aligned with the product experience, not working against it. Which makes sense.
And, if ChatGPT ever adopts ads, this shopping research environment feels like the first test bed.
