Sam Page
← All thinking

ChatGPT now has Ads.

Emerging tech and AI2 min readSam Page

$60 CPM. $200k min buy. A researcher quit. Anthropic's Super Bowl response = 32% download boost. Here's what it means for brands.

800m people use ChatGPT every week. That's a lot of conversational intent for brands to use as a channel for advertising.

It means you can target problems people are trying to solve, based on a conversation, not just keywords.

Just imagine someone is asking:

"How can we protect X, Y and Z?"
"Where can I find the best insurance cover?"
"How should we manage our finances better?"

And your brand showing up, alongside advice from a LLM.
I think it's going to be pretty powerful, whether you agree with it or not.

Early movers on every new ad platform or channel have been rewarded in the past, whether it's Facebook in 2012, Instagram in 2015 or TikTok in 2019.

The brands that tested early built an advantage before cost s went up and competition flooded in.

However, their is also a trust question that is worth considering.

Platforms often follow the same path. They create trust and add value. They grow users. Then they monetise. We've seen it with the brands above, as well as every other major platform including Amazon and Google.

The big question here is can AI be different?

People are using ChatGPT both personally and professionally for trusted advice. Health decisions, career moves, business problem solving and decision making.

Adding Ads into that is going is to feel very different, especially when it's alongside something you are expecting impartial advice on.

It's clearly bothering people insied OpenAi too, with one researching quitting this week stating "OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made."

An of course, Anthropic jumped on this challenge with their Super Bowl ad series that mocked the whole concept.

Where I stand

For me it's quite clear. Lean in, test it, learn. The brands that sit on the sidelines risk getting left behind.

BUT, don't rest on your laurels either. Carefully watch what happens to trust and how that traffic is behaving. If users start questioning relevance the whole model breaks down.

As marketers we have a responsibility to care about that too.

Are you interested in putting budget into ChatGPT yet?
And as an end user, does it change how much you trust the answers?

First published on LinkedIn.

More on emerging tech and AI

One email, every Friday.

What happened this week, what I'm thinking about, and one takeaway for yours.

GEThttps://sam-page.com/thinking/chatgpt-now-has-ads.mdtext/markdown; charset=utf-8

---
title: "ChatGPT now has Ads."
url: https://sam-page.com/thinking/chatgpt-now-has-ads
date: 2026-02-20
author: Sam Page
type: Post or article
categories: [Emerging tech and AI, Marketing]
reading_time: 2 min
summary: "$60 CPM. $200k min buy. A researcher quit. Anthropic's Super Bowl response = 32% download boost. Here's what it means for brands."
first_published: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A7430578958225551360
---

# ChatGPT now has Ads.

$60 CPM. $200k min buy. A researcher quit. Anthropic's Super Bowl response = 32% download boost. Here's what it means for brands.

![](https://sam-page.com/img/thinking/chatgpt-now-has-ads-li1.webp)

800m people use ChatGPT every week. That's a lot of conversational intent for brands to use as a channel for advertising.

It means you can target problems people are trying to solve, based on a conversation, not just keywords.

Just imagine someone is asking:

"How can we protect X, Y and Z?"  
"Where can I find the best insurance cover?"  
"How should we manage our finances better?"

And your brand showing up, alongside advice from a LLM.  
I think it's going to be pretty powerful, whether you agree with it or not.

Early movers on every new ad platform or channel have been rewarded in the past, whether it's Facebook in 2012, Instagram in 2015 or TikTok in 2019.

The brands that tested early built an advantage before cost s went up and competition flooded in.

However, their is also a trust question that is worth considering.

Platforms often follow the same path. They create trust and add value. They grow users. Then they monetise. We've seen it with the brands above, as well as every other major platform including Amazon and Google.

The big question here is can AI be different?

People are using ChatGPT both personally and professionally for trusted advice. Health decisions, career moves, business problem solving and decision making.

Adding Ads into that is going is to feel very different, especially when it's alongside something you are expecting impartial advice on.

It's clearly bothering people insied OpenAi too, with one researching quitting this week stating "OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made."

An of course, Anthropic jumped on this challenge with their Super Bowl ad series that mocked the whole concept.

Where I stand

For me it's quite clear. Lean in, test it, learn. The brands that sit on the sidelines risk getting left behind.

BUT, don't rest on your laurels either. Carefully watch what happens to trust and how that traffic is behaving. If users start questioning relevance the whole model breaks down.

As marketers we have a responsibility to care about that too.

Are you interested in putting budget into ChatGPT yet?  
And as an end user, does it change how much you trust the answers?