If you opened ChatGPT on a Free or Go account in the US this week and saw a “Sponsored” box under an answer, you are not imagining it. You are looking at one of the first ChatGPT ads live in the US. The ads went live on 9 February 2026, when OpenAI started its first public test of advertising inside the assistant.
Here is the short version. Ads show up under ChatGPT’s answer. They are labelled as sponsored. They only reach logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans. And OpenAI says they don’t change what ChatGPT tells you. Below I go through what users actually see, who is left out, what advertisers can and can’t do yet, and what I think it means for brands that depend on being named in ChatGPT’s normal (organic) answers.
ChatGPT Ads Live: What Happened on 9 February
OpenAI first shared its plans on 16 January. It also shared a set of ad principles and launched the cheaper ChatGPT Go plan more widely in the US. We covered that in what we knew when OpenAI first announced ads in ChatGPT. Back then, OpenAI said testing would start “in the coming weeks”.
The test started on 9 February. OpenAI published a page called Testing ads in ChatGPT. It confirms that ads are now shown to logged-in adult users in the US on the Free and Go plans.
This is a test, not a finished product. OpenAI says it wants to learn before a wider rollout. So I fully expect the format, the controls and the advertiser rules to change.
Who Sees ChatGPT Ads and Who Doesn’t
The test audience is small on purpose. Here is how it breaks down.
| Account type | Ads in the US test? |
|---|---|
| Free (logged in, adult) | Yes, unless the user opts out and accepts fewer daily messages |
| Go ($8 a month) | Yes |
| Plus and Pro | No |
| Business, Enterprise and Education | No |
| Users known or predicted to be under 18 | No |
A few points need a bit more detail.
- It is US only. OpenAI has not named any other countries for the test.
- It is for logged-in adults. The test covers logged-in users. People who use ChatGPT without an account are not part of it.
- Age is checked in two ways. Ads don’t show if the user says they are under 18, or if OpenAI predicts they are.
- Go is not ad-free. Some people thought any paid plan would remove ads. Go is paid, but it is in the group that sees ads. Plus is the cheapest plan with no ads. I’ve already seen people mix this up, so it’s worth telling your team.
What ChatGPT Ads Look Like
If you have only seen search ads, ChatGPT’s version will feel familiar in some ways and new in others.
Format and Placement
Ads show at the bottom of an answer, after ChatGPT has replied to the question. They only show when there is a sponsored product or service that fits the conversation.
OpenAI’s own example shows a product-style listing. It is a meal kit with useful details like price, placed under an answer about cooking. So the ad looks like a shopping card, not a banner or a pop-up.
Ads are not mixed into the text of the answer. ChatGPT does not say “you should try Brand X” because Brand X paid. The answer comes first, and the ad sits on its own below it.
Labels
Every ad is marked as sponsored and is visually set apart from the answer. In my view, this is the most important design choice. The whole idea is that users can tell at a glance which part is ChatGPT’s answer and which part is paid.
What Users Can Do With an Ad
Each ad comes with controls. OpenAI says users can:
- hide an ad they don’t want to see
- give feedback on it, including why they hid it
- see why that ad was shown to them
- delete their ad data with one tap
- manage ad personalisation at any time
Where Ads Won’t Appear
Ads can’t show near sensitive or regulated topics. OpenAI names health, mental health and politics. So a chat about symptoms, anxiety or an election should not have a sponsored listing under it, even for a Free user.
How ChatGPT Chooses Which Ad to Show
This is the part many people want to understand. It is where privacy and relevance meet.
OpenAI says advertisers send in their ads, and ChatGPT matches them to users using three signals:
- The topic of the current chat. Ask about weeknight dinners and you might see a meal kit.
- Your past chats. Earlier conversations can shape which ads fit you.
- How you reacted to past ads. What you clicked, ignored or hid feeds into future choices.
When several advertisers are a good fit, OpenAI says it shows the one most relevant to your chat first. That is different from a classic auction, where the highest bid often wins the top spot. OpenAI has not shared how bids, budgets and relevance are weighed against each other. So I’d be careful with anyone who claims to know “how to win the ChatGPT auction” right now.
If the use of past chats makes you uneasy, the personalisation setting is the one to change. Turning personalisation off and clearing ad data are both part of the controls OpenAI has described.
The Privacy Promises, in Plain English
OpenAI set out five advertising principles in January. It repeated the main ones when the test went live. Without the company wording, they come down to these promises.
- Ads don’t change the answer. OpenAI says ads don’t affect the answers ChatGPT gives. Answers are still meant to be built for what is most helpful, not for who is paying.
- Advertisers don’t see your chats. Advertisers don’t get your conversations, chat history, memories or personal details.
- Advertisers only get total numbers. They get performance data, like how many people saw or clicked an ad. They don’t get information about single users.
- Your data isn’t sold. OpenAI says it never sells user data to advertisers.
- You have a way out. Free users can opt out of ads and get fewer daily free messages, or upgrade to Plus or Pro.
OpenAI also says it does not build ChatGPT to make you spend more time in the app, and that it will put user trust ahead of revenue. These are promises. Nobody outside OpenAI can check them yet. I think they are worth holding the company to as the test goes on.
What the Promises Don’t Cover
It helps to be exact about the gaps. “Advertisers don’t see your chats” is not the same as “your chats aren’t used for ads”. OpenAI is clear that chat topics and past chats are used to pick ads. The data stays inside OpenAI, but it is still part of the targeting (how an ad is matched to a person).
OpenAI has also said it will add limits on very narrow targeting and protection against scams and misleading ads. The details of those protections were not published when the test started.
What Advertisers Can Do at This Stage
For marketers, the honest answer right now is: not much, unless you are already in the pilot.
- It is an invite-style pilot. OpenAI says it will be careful about who it lets into the advertiser programme. This is not an open, self-serve platform like Google Ads or Meta Ads.
- There is an interest form. Businesses can register interest on OpenAI’s advertisers page. Signing up does not promise a place.
- Pricing hasn’t been published. OpenAI has not published pricing, bidding rules or a minimum spend on its own pages. You will see figures quoted around the industry. Until OpenAI confirms them, I wouldn’t build a budget on them.
- Reporting is basic. Advertisers get total numbers like views and clicks. Don’t expect user-level audiences or the kind of conversion data you get from older, more mature ad platforms.
- Some topics are off the table. Health, mental health and politics can’t carry ads. That removes a lot of ad space for brands in those areas.
OpenAI has also talked about future formats where users could ask follow-up questions about an advertised product inside the chat before they buy. It described this as something it is exploring, not part of what launched on 9 February. On a separate track, US users can already buy some products inside the chat through ChatGPT Instant Checkout.
Should You Rush to Get In?
If you are a large consumer brand with a product that fits everyday ChatGPT questions, signing up costs little. Being early can teach you how people react to ads inside a conversation.
For most small and mid-sized businesses, there is nothing to buy yet. My advice is to spend your time on how your brand shows up in ChatGPT’s answers. That is the part you can change today.
What ChatGPT Ads Mean for Your Organic Presence
For SEO and content teams, this is the big question. If ChatGPT now sells space, does being named in the normal answer still count?
Based on what OpenAI has said, yes. I’d argue it counts even more than before.
The Answer Is Still the Main Event
The ad sits under the answer, not inside it. When someone asks ChatGPT to compare project management tools or suggest a good running shoe, the brands named in the reply get the attention first. The sponsored card comes after.
If OpenAI keeps its promise that ads don’t change answers, there is no way to pay your way into the answer itself. Organic visibility in ChatGPT stays an earned channel.
Paid and Organic Can Now Sit Side by Side
Here is a picture every brand should keep in mind. A user asks ChatGPT for recommendations. The answer names three of your competitors. Under it, a fourth competitor shows up as a sponsored listing. You are nowhere.
The reverse can happen too. Your brand is in the answer, and a rival buys the ad slot below it. That is very close to what happens in Google, where a competitor can bid on searches for your category while you rank organically. Google already runs ads in and around its own AI features, which we touched on in our look at Gemini 3 powering AI Overviews. ChatGPT is now going the same way.
Commercial Queries Will Get More Crowded
Ads are matched to the chat topic, so they will gather around buying questions: shopping, travel, food, software and services. Information and sensitive topics are less likely to carry ads. Health, mental health and politics are left out completely.
If your business depends on product and service recommendations, expect more competition for the user’s attention in ChatGPT. If you publish advice in the excluded topics, I don’t think the ad test will change much for you.
How to Check and Strengthen Your Organic Visibility in ChatGPT
You can’t control the ads. But you can make sure ChatGPT has good reasons to mention you. This is the simple process I’d follow.
- List the questions that matter. Write down 15 to 25 questions your customers would really ask, like “best accounting software for a small charity” or “is a meal kit cheaper than shopping”. Include questions with your brand name and questions about your category without it.
- Ask ChatGPT and write down what comes back. Run each question. Note which brands are named, which sources are cited and whether any sponsored listings show. Use a Free account as well as a paid one, because only Free and Go users see ads in this test.
- Make sure OpenAI’s crawlers can reach your site. Check your
robots.txtfile (the file that tells bots which pages they may visit). If you block OpenAI’s search crawler,OAI-SearchBot, your pages are less likely to be shown and cited in ChatGPT’s search results. This is the first thing I check, because a blocked crawler makes every other step pointless. - Fix the facts about you. Wrong prices, old products or out-of-date descriptions in ChatGPT’s answers often come from your own site or from third-party listings. Update product pages, your About page and key directory profiles so the right details are easy to find.
- Write full, clear answers. Pages that answer a question fully, with details like prices, comparisons and who the product suits, give ChatGPT something solid to use. Google has warned against chopping content into small pieces for AI, and the same logic applies here, as explained in why you shouldn’t chop content into bite-sized chunks for AI.
- Earn mentions beyond your own site. Reviews, comparisons and coverage on trusted sites help ChatGPT see your brand as a real option in your category.
- Repeat every month. Ask the same questions each month and compare. Look for changes in who gets named in the answer, and whether sponsored listings start showing for your category.
Watch Your Referral Traffic Too
Visits from ChatGPT usually show in analytics as referrals from chatgpt.com. Some arrive with no referrer and land in direct traffic. I’d set up a simple segment or report for this source now, so you have a starting point before ads spread. If your ChatGPT referrals drop while your mentions in answers stay steady, ads may be pulling clicks away.
What to Tell Your Users and Customers
Some businesses use ChatGPT inside the company or suggest it to clients. If people ask you whether ChatGPT is now “biased by ads”, here is a fair, factual way to explain it.
- Ads only show for logged-in adults on Free and Go in the US.
- They are labelled as sponsored and sit below the answer.
- OpenAI says the answer itself is not affected by ads.
- Advertisers don’t get access to chats or personal details.
- Anyone who wants no ads can upgrade to Plus or Pro. Free users can opt out and get fewer messages.
Business, Enterprise and Education workspaces are left out, so company accounts on those plans should not see ads at all.
What to Watch Next
The test is only two days old, so a lot is still unknown. These are the questions I’m keeping an eye on.
- Rollout beyond the US. OpenAI has not named other countries yet.
- Advertiser access. Whether the pilot opens to more businesses, and whether self-serve buying ever arrives.
- Pricing and measurement. Official pricing, bidding rules and what reports advertisers get beyond views and clicks.
- Formats. Whether chat-style ads, where users can ask about an advertised product, move from idea to test.
- Trust. How users react, and whether OpenAI keeps the line between answers and ads as clear as it is today.
Conclusion
ChatGPT ads live in a very limited form for now: US only, Free and Go plans only, adults only, labelled as sponsored and placed below the answer. Advertisers have very little to buy yet, and OpenAI hasn’t published pricing or minimums.
For most brands, I think the smart move is to focus on what you can control. Check how ChatGPT describes you today, fix the facts it relies on, and set a starting point for your ChatGPT referral traffic before paid listings become common. If you are adding this to your wider plans for the year, our practical 2026 SEO plan is a good place to fit it in.
