OpenAI is keeping the ChatGPT ads Cannes momentum going.
Fresh off its first appearance at Cannes Lions, OpenAI is signaling that advertising is becoming a central part of its business. In a LinkedIn post published Monday, Benji Shomair, VP of Monetization, said the company used the event to meet with advertisers, agencies, partners, and media while discussing the expansion of ChatGPT Ads.
“And we’re just getting started,” notes the post. Ending with: “We’re excited to keep building.”
Why This Matters:
Shomair said ChatGPT Ads, which launched roughly five months ago, is now available in seven markets (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea, we think). He added that OpenAI has made progress across ad formats, advertiser tools, performance, and measurement (key one) while emphasizing that any future expansion will continue to prioritize end-user trust. As the company expands its ads business, it will need to carefully balance monetization with preserving the user experience.
The post also reinforces how OpenAI views ChatGPT’s role in advertising going forward. Rather than positioning ChatGPT soley as an AI assistant, the company is increasingly describing it as a fundamentally new marketing channel where brands can reach users during moments of research, planning, and decision-making. The latter, of course, is more powerful than the former.
Shomair also highlighted ChatGPT’s scale, noting that nearly one billion people use the platform each week. That audience scale, combined with continued investments in ads and adtech, suggests the company is moving beyond early testing and toward broader commercialization. This makes even more sense given the company’s forthcoming IPO.
Experts React:
Here’s the full post from LinkedIn:
Our focus at OpenAI’s first Cannes Lions last week was simple: spend time with customers and partners, listen, and learn. We brought our four-month-old ChatGPT ads product to Cannes, and we’re grateful to the advertisers, agencies, partners, and journalists who shared their time and perspectives with us.
One thing was clear from our conversations: AI is creating a fundamentally new opportunity for marketers.
ChatGPT is a new marketing channel — a place where people come with questions, goals, and decisions they want to make. With nearly 1 billion people using ChatGPT each week, businesses have a new opportunity to be useful in the moments that matter.
In less than five months, we’ve launched ChatGPT Ads in seven markets and made meaningful progress across formats , advertiser tools, performance and measurement.
And we’re just getting started. We’ll continue investing in new markets, formats, and capabilities while protecting user trust (in alignment with our ads principles) and delivering results to businesses.
Thank you to everyone who spent time with us at Cannes. We’re excited to keep building.
Our Take:
As we wrote last week, OpenAI didn’t use Cannes to unveil major new ad products. Instead, it used the event to signal where its ads business was/is headed. Between meetings with advertisers, agencies, partners, and reporters, the company made it clear it’s serious about building ChatGPT Ads. (Sam, you’ve come around!)
The next challenge is execution. OpenAI has to prove it can deliver meaningful results for advertisers while maintaining the user experience that made ChatGPT so popular. So far, though, the company has shown it can move quickly while keeping users at the center of its strategy. (And they do this better than most companies, if we’re being honest. Props to the team.)
