OpenAI decides delivery on the ChatGPT ads Amazon now sells through its DSP

CNBC's worked example is a user asking ChatGPT for marathon training tips and getting an ad for running shoes sold on Amazon under the answer ^[7]. For the person on the media team, the interesting part is who decides that the shoe shows up.

The buyer books the placement in Amazon DSP, next to campaigns already running there, and never has to deal with OpenAI, TechRadar reported ^[2]. Amazon sets up and manages the campaigns, an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC ^[4], and its platform draws on "trillions of proprietary browsing, shopping, and streaming signals" without relying on ad identifiers, the company says ^[10]. OpenAI's ad system makes every decision about which ads are delivered ^[5].

The brands in the trial describe a decision they get to make. Delta Vacations is one of them, and its president, Katrin Koenig, said "We're proud to be among the first brands testing this new approach." She said the company would use "deep consumer insights" to decide how and when Delta Vacations appears in ChatGPT ads ^[9], and OpenAI's system decides the when ^[5].

Chris Conetta, director of omnichannel supply at Amazon DSP, said in the announcement that "Conversational ads represent the fastest growing engagement opportunity for brands to reach new and existing audiences" ^[8]. Fastest growing is a statement about how much inventory exists, and the announcement reports no click-through rate, no conversion figure and no count of ad-eligible sessions ^[22]. The reach number in circulation is the 900 million weekly active users OpenAI gave in February for ChatGPT as a whole ^[12].

The size of the two ad businesses runs the other way from the headline. Amazon's ad business is about $70bn a year and the third largest in digital advertising, TechRadar reported, citing Marketing Dive ^[16]. OpenAI's ad run rate is roughly 1.4 percent of that ^[20]. Amazon is buying distribution on someone else's surface, and OpenAI is picking up an advertiser base without selling to each brand one at a time.

Amazon has heavily restricted access to its store from AI platforms including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, CNBC reported, and in August a US court let Perplexity's shopping agent onto Amazon, overturning a ban ^[17]. In February it agreed to invest $50bn in OpenAI, starting with $15bn, with the remaining $35bn conditional on terms being met; The Information has reported that Amazon completed that second tranche ^[19].

For the person writing the plan on Monday, the useful test is the list of levers the buyer actually holds: creative, bid, budget and the decision to stop. Delivery is not on that list, and neither is the sentence the model writes in the paragraph above the ad. A line item shaped like that is a reach test, sized at a number the team can write off and judged against a threshold the team sets itself, because the seller has published none ^[22].