It’s no longer theoretical.
Search intelligence platform Adthena has identified what appear to be live ads inside ChatGPT — the first widely shared examples of paid placements showing up in the wild. Screenshots shared by Adthena’s CMO on LinkedIn show a travel-related prompt, followed by a clearly labeled sponsored unit at the bottom of the response (which is consistent with what OpenAI has said about how ads would be displayed).
In this example, the advertiser is Expedia. The placement includes two clickable tiles: “Last Minute Weekend Getaways” and “Romantic Trips for Couples,” each promoting package deals. The unit is labeled “Expedia · Sponsored,” and includes a disclosure stating that ads do not influence ChatGPT’s answers and that chats remain private.
Until now, advertising inside ChatGPT had been discussed, debated, and speculated about — but not visibly confirmed. Here, we finally have confirmation!
Why This Matters:
For months, the industry has been asking when — not if — ads would come to ChatGPT. With growing infrastructure costs and pressure to generate revenue, an ad-supported model has long seemed inevitable (to Sam Altman’s dismay). After OpenAI announced a few weeks ago that it would bring ads to ChatGPT, the bigger questions shifted to format and integration: How would ads appear? How would they be labeled? Would they feel native, disruptive, or somewhere in between?
Adthena’s screenshots begin to answer that.
As expected, the format resembles sponsored recommendations appended to the end of a response rather than interruptive display ads. The Expedia unit appears contextually aligned with the user’s travel query and separated from the core answer, with clear sponsorship labeling.
For marketers, this introduces a new high-intent environment that looks closer to search than social feeds. For users, it raises important questions around trust, transparency, and the commercialization of conversational AI. And for the adtech ecosystem, it signals that large language model interfaces are finally entering their ad monetization era (and they’ll probably need partners to make it work).
Experts React:
Here’s the full post from Adthena CMO Ashley Fletcher:
Our Take:
The experiment phase is over (as others throw in the towel).
While the scale will be low here, we do think OpenAI will use this as an opportunity to collect data and test things, which will hopefully usher in new and exciting ad experiences down the line.
