Amazon announced Thursday that select brands using its ad network can now buy advertising inventory inside ChatGPT, connecting one of the world’s largest digital advertising businesses with OpenAI’s rapidly expanding chatbot.
The initiative launches as an invitation-only pilot for select U.S. brands through the Amazon Demand-Side Platform. Handled as a managed service, the program allows marketers to run text and image promotions beneath organic ChatGPT answers on both cost-per-click and cost-per-thousand-impression bases. Delta Vacations is among the first companies testing the setup.
“Travel planning is becoming increasingly personalized, and travelers expect experiences that feel relevant,” Katrin Koenig, president of Delta Vacations, said in a statement.
For agencies and adtech partners, the pilot provides another route into ChatGPT’s growing advertising business without requiring advertisers to manage campaigns through a separate buying platform.
The move represents another expansion of Amazon’s advertising business, which generated nearly $70 billion in revenue last year. While the retail giant previously shielded its product catalog from web-crawling AI models like Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, it quietly became ChatGPT’s top retail advertiser between April and August, according to Sensor Tower data reported by CNBC.
Tollbooths at the point of thought
By turning its ad tech into a bridge to ChatGPT, Amazon is confronting a deeper reality: modern consumer intent is slipping away from traditional e-commerce search bars.
When shoppers ask conversational assistants for vacation itineraries or gift recommendations, they make purchasing decisions before ever landing on a retail homepage. Rather than fighting that migration, Amazon is using its advertising technology and proprietary consumer signals to establish a foothold inside conversational AI.
“Conversational ads represent the fastest growing engagement opportunity for brands to reach new and existing audiences,” said Chris Conetta, director of omnichannel supply at Amazon DSP.
Divided controls and measurement gaps
For marketing departments deciding whether to jump into conversational placements, the setup requires navigating significant friction.
First, the operational model splits authority. Amazon manages campaign setup and budgets, while OpenAI’s advertising system determines when and where eligible ads appear inside ChatGPT. Marketers cannot handpick exact prompt placements; they must rely on OpenAI’s contextual matching to determine when an ad is relevant to a conversation.
Second, tracking performance remains rudimentary. Advertisers currently receive only aggregated metrics such as impressions, clicks, and average costs. That limited visibility arrives alongside broader industry skepticism about whether chatbot banners can match the direct conversion power of classic search ads.
The operational growing pains are evident on both sides. According to Axios, OpenAI is targeting $100 billion in annual advertising revenue by 2030 but reaching that goal will require more mature buying, measurement and attribution tools.
For agencies and channel partners, the immediate opportunity is experimentation rather than a major shift in client spending. Amazon DSP offers a familiar route into ChatGPT advertising, but partners should compare click quality, conversion rates and reporting depth with established search and social platforms before recommending larger investments.