The news: OpenAI is addressing its nascent ad business by expanding ChatGPT’s US ad inventory and attracting bigger brands.

• ChatGPT showed mobile app users about twice as many ads per hour in July as it did in April, per Sensor Tower data shared with EMARKETER.
• It has nearly tripled its number of advertisers, jumping to over 820 in July from about 300 in April, and nearly 20% of unique advertisers in July were completely new to the platform.
• The top 10 ChatGPT advertisers include major brands such as Booking Holdings, Expedia, Home Depot, Intuit, L.L. Bean, and Quince.

Zooming out: ChatGPT has intensive and optimistic goals for its advertising business, including a projected $2.5 billion in ad revenues this year and more than $100 billion by 2030. However, we forecast that the chatbot ad market as a whole—including within apps like ChatGPT, Alexa+, Copilot, and Gemini—will generate less than $1 billion in ad revenues this year and just $5.41 billion by 2030.

OpenAI’s ad infrastructure also remains relatively basic compared with competitors like Google and Meta—that includes underdeveloped insights into campaign performance and reportedly lower-tech buying processes. This lack of maturity could dissuade advertisers from moving large budgets into its ecosystem and delay the AI firm’s aggressive ad ambitions.

Why it matters: The evidence of larger brands joining ChatGPT Ads shows a growing belief that product discovery is shifting from search results to AI answers.

OpenAI is persuading larger brands to experiment while simultaneously increasing the number of ads users see, showing supply-side signals.

However, AI search still won’t replace traditional search for shopping and product discovery anytime soon—genAI tools account for just 3.3% of US online discovery time, per Comscore data analyzed by EMARKETER.

Recommendations for advertisers: OpenAI wants advertising revenues today, but it still lacks the sophisticated ad products and proven shopping behavior that make Google such a valuable advertising business.

• Explore testing ads on the platform to avoid missing the next major discovery surface if it materializes.
• Press for case studies and clear proof of return on ad spend (ROAS), and limit budget allocations to incremental, experimental increases until there's clear evidence that advertiser satisfaction and conversion rates are growing alongside brand involvement.