OpenAI started piloting Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT on September 16, letting US advertisers run labeled conversational agents that take follow-up questions and hand off to the advertiser's site, per Unite.AI. OpenAI says a Sponsored Agent conversation stays separate from ChatGPT's own answers. The same release added natural-language campaign tools, a HubSpot integration, and a Shopify app that goes international on September 23. Wayfair, Angi, Newegg, Best Buy, Lowe's, and VistaPrint are among the early advertisers.
ChatGPT Ads reached a $1 billion annualized run rate about seven months after launch, CFO Sarah Friar said, per CNBC. eMarketer's Nate Elliott reads that same figure as confirmation OpenAI misses its $2.5 billion ad target for 2026. A run rate annualizes one moment in time. Even so, ads went from nothing to a material line inside a year, and still landed under plan.
Sponsored Agents change what is being sold. Answer-based ads sell placement next to a response. An advertiser-run agent sells the conversation, which is the surface where the assistant earns its trust. Labeling keeps the two apart on screen. Friar has described the ad ambition as Google and Meta combined, which doubles as a description of the tension: one interface answers the question and sells against it.
The timing matters for the valuation story we covered Wednesday. Investors floated a round above $1.2 trillion while OpenAI delayed its IPO, and an ad line at a $1 billion run rate is the closest thing in that pitch to a consumer-scale engine. Advertising is also the only line that scales with free users, who are most of them.
Bottom Line
Ads at a $1 billion run rate, seven months in, with advertiser agents now inside the ad unit. Watch for disclosure on how sponsored conversations affect engagement, because this business charges its first cost to user trust and only later to revenue.