The news: Brand interest in ChatGPT advertising is growing, but OpenAI has yet to prove it can compete with more established performance channels—a critical step if it wants to meet its ambitious revenue goals.

• 1,082 distinct brands were running ads on ChatGPT in June across the US, UK, EU, and Australia after the pilot launched in February, per Adthena data cited by Digiday. By August, that number had increased sharply to 6,333.
• But ChatGPT ads reach less than half of eligible users. The UK has the highest volume of eligible users seeing ChatGPT ads at 45.7%, with the US only slightly behind at 43.4%. But in markets like Mexico, just 27.8% of eligible users are being reached, according to Similarweb and Graphite.
• Results are well below more established channels. Paid ChatGPT visits generate $0.89 in revenues per session for US brands, well below the $2.45 generated by paid Google Search visits, per research cited by Digiday.
• Conversion rates are just 0.37% for ChatGPT traffic, compared with Google’s 1.17% rate.

Why it matters: Advertisers are increasingly interested in experimenting with ChatGPT ads. But early results suggest OpenAI still has significant work to do to demonstrate the value of its ad platform.

Advertisers participating in OpenAI’s pilot have noted issues like ads not being displayed frequently enough, irrelevant placements, low engagement, and little information about how ads perform beyond clicks and impressions.

But while trial and error is to be expected from an ad platform as new as ChatGPT, OpenAI needs to address these shortcomings to turn advertiser experimentation into sustained spending. The company aims to exceed $100 billion in ad revenues by 2030—a feat that we estimate would require selling about $50 billion of advertising in the US alone. We forecast just $5.41 billion in US chatbot ad spending in 2030.