More than 1,400 Brands Have Tested ChatGPT Ads Since Launch
New Sensor Tower data reveals retailers are by far the top advertisers on the platform
Hello from Seattle! I’m happy to be back home for several days before the Cannes Lions craziness starts. I’ll be participating in panels and events with Sensor Tower/EMARKETER (Monday), Beet.tv (Tuesday), Mediaocean (Wednesday), The Brand and AI Safety Summit (Wednesday) and The Female Quotient (Thursday). Get all the details at the bottom of the newsletter.
Today you’re getting a first look at data from Sensor Tower’s new ChatGPT Advertising Intelligence product (currently in beta). The number of advertisers that have started testing ads on ChatGPT is much higher than I expected, showing that ChatGPT has already crossed an important threshold: From early-adopter experiment to significant testing across a broad base of advertisers.
THE MAIN STORY
More than 1,400 Brands Have Tested ChatGPT Ads Since Launch
Retailers are among the businesses most threatened by ChatGPT’s growing role in product discovery, but they are also the platform’s biggest advertisers.
Sensor Tower data provided to The AI Ad Economy shows that shopping-related brands accounted for nearly 40% of all ad impressions between February 10 and May 24, 2026, making them by far the largest ad category on the platform.
The data also reveals that more than 1,400 brands have already advertised on ChatGPT in the US, across nearly every major industry category.
While that represents only about 1% of the roughly 135,000 brands that have advertised digitally in the same timeframe, per Sensor Tower’s tracking, the findings suggest that experimentation with ChatGPT is quickly spreading across multiple sectors that want to understand how advertising in AI-native platforms can influence purchase behavior.
Methodology
Sensor Tower operates a global panel of adult consumers ages 18+ who allow the company to track the advertisements they receive as they navigate the web and mobile spaces. The ChatGPT Advertiser Intelligence dashboard tracks and analyzes advertising delivered to US panel members via ChatGPT’s Android app.
The number of ChatGPT advertisers is growing quickly
Sensor Tower identified a total of 1,419 unique brands that have advertised to US audiences on ChatGPT’s Android mobile app in the February 10-May 24, 2026 timeframe.
Brand participation in ChatGPT has risen dramatically in just a few months.
In the first week after the ads launch, Sensor Tower tracked 30 advertisers on the platform. By the week ending March 1, there were 117 advertisers—significant but not notable.
By early April, the total tracked advertiser count ballooned to over 600 and then topped 950 by the start of May.
Advertiser activity has ramped up even more in the past few weeks, after OpenAI introduced new ad tools and opened ads to more advertisers. In the week ending May 24, 2026, Sensor Tower tracked 266 new brands advertising on the platform, almost four times the number of new entrants tracked in the week ending May 10.
That increase followed the introduction of a wave of new advertising capabilities from OpenAI, including a self-serve ads manager, CPC bidding and conversions API, as well as product feed ads and new ecommerce creative formats.
Retailers are embracing ChatGPT
Shopping brands tower over other categories when it comes to advertising on ChatGPT. These brands accounted for 39.5% of tracked ad impressions in the February-May time period. Software companies ranked second (12%), followed by media & entertainment firms (10.3%).
However, brands from nearly every major industry category are represented in the database, including travel and tourism, which accounted for 4.6% of ad impressions, auto (3.2%) and CPG (1.8%).
Top advertisers are testing different ad strategies
More than half of the top 10 advertisers on ChatGPT are retail brands. Best Buy was the biggest advertiser during the February 10-May 24 time period, with a 2.43% share of ad impressions. Target, SCHEELS and Home Depot ranked next.
Digging deeper into the Sensor Tower data, I’m seeing diverging strategies for testing ChatGPT ads. Best Buy went big in the first weeks after the ad launch, accounting for a whopping 28.3% of ad impressions in the week ended February 15, 2026 (the first week ads were shown). By early April, Best Buy’s share had fallen below 2%, and it trailed off to zero by mid-May.
Home Depot, on the other hand, maintained a lower but relatively steady presence. Its share of weekly ad impressions averaged under 1% through early May, but then began increasing, surpassing a 4% share by the end of the month.
The remaining advertisers in the top 10 were Speechify, a text-to-speech AI assistant; Preply, an online language education business; Top10.com, an online comparison company; and Jotform, an online survey provider.
What Does this Data Mean for the Growth of AI Media?
ChatGPT ads are attracting far more advertiser interest than skeptics expected. The fact that more than 1,400 brands have already started to place ads on ChatGPT shows that AI media—AI-native platforms and experiences where consumers research and make purchase decisions—is something advertisers are very open to testing. Advertisers are clearly eager to understand how AI-native media environments work.
Retailers are benefiting from early learnings. I’m not surprised that shopping-related brands have been the strongest to embrace ads on ChatGPT. In January, when I published an analysis predicting which industry categories should be the first to advertise in AI media, retailers were one of the four categories I identified.
One reason retailers have emerged as early adopters of ChatGPT ads is that they fear losing visibility into consumers’ research and purchase behavior. They know that AI platforms can intercept shopping behavior. Advertising on ChatGPT gives them visibility into how consumers research, what triggers them to click on ads (versus just reading the organic responses) and the types of messaging that can influence them.
Tech advertisers are also gaining first-mover advantage. The fact that software brands accounted for 12% of ad impressions shows that they are embracing the potential for conversational discovery as an advertising vehicle. In my January analysis, I advised tech advertisers to put AI media on the front burner. These advertisers rely heavily on research-driven discovery, so there is significant overlap with AI use cases such as comparison, troubleshooting and buying guidance.
Media brands are a surprising entrant. What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly media & entertainment brands have moved to test ChatGPT advertising, accounting for 1 in 10 ad impressions in the Sensor Tower dataset. Just like retailers, these companies are also wary of ChatGPT’s impact on referral traffic. It’s possible they are testing ChatGPT ads to gain insight into how they work so they can mount a defense. If that’s the case, it’s a smart strategy.
Another explanation could be related to understanding how discovery works in conversational environments. If ChatGPT becomes a significant discovery layer, media companies need to understand it.
No single advertiser dominates ChatGPT. Best Buy started out dominant, but it ended up accounting for just 2.43% of impressions during the period as other advertisers entered and its initial burst of advertising slowed. The data suggests that there is broad experimentation across brands and categories rather than concentrated spending by a few.
The data measures advertiser participation, not advertiser success. What Sensor Tower’s data shows is that interest in ChatGPT advertising is substantial, given the newness of the ad offering, but it’s also in the early stages, since only about 1% of tracked brands have advertised there so far.
In addition, the industry categories that are investing first—and strongest—are among the ones that are most vulnerable to the shift in discovery patterns that AI platforms are creating. They are gaining early visibility into a discovery environment that has the potential to sit between them and their consumers.
What the data doesn’t show is if advertisers are getting results from these ads. Whether they continue spending will depend on performance and consumer acceptance.
To sustain that momentum, OpenAI will need to continue expanding its measurement and optimization capabilities. But for now, the initial interest in ChatGPT ads is significant.
If you’ll be in Cannes, I’ll be discussing this data as well as how AI platforms are affecting commerce media alongside analysts Andrew Lipsman, Sarah Marzano and Kiri Masters at the EMARKETER/Sensor Tower event “Meet the People Defining Commerce Media’s Next Era.” It’s on Monday June 22, from 3-6:30pm at The CPG Guys’ residence. Register your interest here.
THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE AI AD ECONOMY
How Much Do People Trust AI Across Product Categories?
When it comes to recommending products or services, confidence in AI chatbots is fairly uniform across age groups. US adults are generally more likely to trust recommendations for things like electronics, entertainment/media or appliances and generally less likely to trust recommendations for medical- and financial-related products or services, according to Ipsos. People 55 and up are less trusting, overall than than younger age groups; in fact, trust levels in the 18-34 and 35-54 groups are remarkably similar.
HEADLINES
AI Advertising Signals
ChatGPT ads land in UK as OpenAI outlines EU privacy rules — OpenAI is expanding advertising while adapting to Europe’s stricter privacy environment. AI advertising is moving beyond testing and beginning to confront the same regulatory constraints that shaped digital advertising.
OpenAI thinks ChatGPT will collect about $50bn in US ad revenues in 2030. We think their entire addressable market will be 1/10th that — A new EMARKETER forecast for US AI ad spending predicts that “AI ads will more than double from over $32bn in 2026 to more than $68bn in 2030. But more than 80% of AI advertising in 2026 will appear next to AI content, such as traditional search ads next to Google AI Overviews, rather than inside AI chatbots or conversations,” EMARKETER analyst Nate Elliott writes on LinkedIn.
AI Commerce & Agentic Signals
Visa to secure payments for shoppers on ChatGPT in OpenAI partnership — OpenAI is extending from product discovery toward transaction execution. Control of payments may become as strategically important as control of recommendations in the emerging agentic commerce stack.
Emerging Players & Ecosystem
Perplexity planning IPO by 2028 regardless of what happens to Anthropic or OpenAI, CEO says — Perplexity is positioning itself as an independent platform rather than a feature acquisition target. The signal is growing confidence that AI-native discovery companies can support durable standalone businesses.
Google gets a dose of social media with Search Profiles to capture new audiences — Search Profiles create direct relationships between Google and creators. As AI-generated answers reduce clicks, Google appears to be strengthening incentives for content creation inside its own ecosystem.
How publishers are modeling and mitigating a future with significantly less Google Search traffic — Publishers are shifting from temporary traffic declines to long-term planning assumptions. The signal is that AI-driven referral loss is increasingly being treated as a structural market change rather than a cyclical disruption.
Data & Performance Signals
Google’s AI opt-out leaves publishers with a choice they can’t safely use — People Inc. lost 800 million Google visits between Q1 2024 and Q1 2026. Publishers face growing dependence on AI visibility even as AI-generated answers reduce referral traffic.
WHAT’S DEBBIE UP TO?
SPECIAL CANNES LIONS EDITION
I’ll be on stages (and yachts) up and down the Croisette this year. Here’s where you can catch me:
Monday June 22, 3-6pm: “Meet the People Defining Commerce Media’s Next Era” (Sensor Tower, CPG Guys and EMARKETER)
I’m excited to join my former EMARKETER colleague Andrew Lipsman, current analyst Sarah Marzano and Retail Media Breakfast Club’s Kiri Masters in a panel discussion that’s part of a 3-hour event focusing on retail media, AI and agentic commerce.
Register your interest here.
Tuesday June 23, 3-4pm: Beet.tv’s AI Summit
I’ll be presenting “Beyond Performance Marketing: AI and the New Consumer Decision Journey” and then moderating the panel discussion “AI, Automation & the New Performance Playbook,” featuring Bob Lord, president of Horizon Media; Bradley Rogers, CEO of OMD US; and Ali Manning, COO of Chalice AI.
Check out the full Beet.tv Cannes agenda here.
Tuesday June 23, 8:30pm: Mediaocean dinner
I’ll be delivering an opening provocation focused on my AI media research at a private dinner hosted on Mediaocean’s yacht.
Wednesday June 24, 2:15-3pm: “Closing the Loop — AI, Programmatic, and Measurement in Pharma,” from 614 Group and the Brand and AI Safety Summit
I’m moderating a panel discussion featuring Parbinder Dhariwal, VP & GM, CVS Media Exchange, and Anvita Karara, VP, Commercialization, BMS.
View the full Brand and AI Safety Summit and request an invite here.
Thursday June 25, 9:30am: “The Human Advantage: Creativity in the Age of AI” at FQ Beach at Cannes Lions
I’ll be discussing how companies can embrace AI in the creative process, how to maintain cultural nuance and authenticity when we use AI in marketing, and how AI can help unlock new ways of being creative rather than replacing current methods with Ekta Chopra, Chief Technology & AI Officer, E.L.F. BEAUTY; Lindsay Franke, President & Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Ipsos North America; and Prachi Gore, Chief Marketing Officer, Asana.
Register your interest here.
Will you be in Cannes too? If you want to meet up, just reply to this email and we’ll make it happen!
Debra Aho Williamson is the Founder and Chief Analyst of Sonata Insights, where she helps advertisers navigate the next major structural shift in media: the rapid rise and monetization of AI platforms. Over nearly two decades as an analyst at EMARKETER, Debra was among the first to forecast the growth of social media advertising and identify how it would fundamentally reshape marketing investment.
Today, she applies that same pattern-recognition lens to AI, analyzing how consumer adoption is accelerating monetization and redefining brand budgets, media strategy and industry power dynamics. Through Sonata Insights, she partners with leading platforms, agencies and technology companies to deliver research, advisory and strategic narratives that bring clarity and credibility to this transition.
This is fantastic data and commentary. Very valuable information about the growth of AI ads. I'm not sure it matters anymore, but is there any interaction effect as AI consumer usage increases--meaning as AI usage ramps up, the number of ads seen goes up?