OpenAI is adding a new kind of advertising to ChatGPT: image-based ads that appear alongside the pictures it generates for you.
What is changing
Until now, ads in ChatGPT were text. The new format lets advertisers show product imagery, usage and experiences, placed next to images that users ask ChatGPT to generate. The ad sits beside the result rather than inside it.
The test begins later in October, in the US only, with an initial group of advertisers. OpenAI says the ads will be clearly labelled and will not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.
Who will see them
OpenAI positions the ads as supporting its free and low-cost subscription tiers. It has not published a plan-by-plan list of who will and will not see them, so it is worth checking your own account once the test begins rather than assuming either way.
The measurement side
Alongside the new format, OpenAI named a long list of measurement and attribution partners, including AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch and Kochava, plus DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science for brand-suitability pilots. That is the infrastructure of a serious ad business, not an experiment.
Why image generation first
Image requests are unusually commercial. Someone generating a living room, an outfit or a product mock-up is already describing something they might buy. That makes the image surface the most natural place in ChatGPT to show a product, and the least jarring.
What to take from it
If you use ChatGPT's image generation for client or commercial work, expect the interface around your results to change, and keep the distinction between the generated image and any adjacent ad clear in your workflow. If ads in the interface are a deal-breaker for you, this is a reason to compare image tools that are paid-only and ad-free, rather than a reason to panic.