Amazon Lets Select U.S. Advertisers Run Ads in ChatGPT

Amazon is giving select U.S. brands that advertise on its platform a route to place ads beneath ChatGPT responses. Amazon will set up and manage the campaigns, while OpenAI’s advertising system will make delivery decisions; the placements can appear as text or images.

The partnership puts Amazon between its existing advertisers and OpenAI’s conversational ad product. For participating brands, Amazon becomes the campaign-management route into ChatGPT rather than a retailer whose storefront is being opened to the chatbot.

One partnership, two distinct roles

A new commercial route, not a webstore opening

That separation is commercially notable because Amazon has restricted AI platforms including ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini from accessing its webstore while investing in its own AI shopping tools. The new deal instead lets Amazon supply advertising demand to an outside AI platform while maintaining a tighter boundary around the retail destination itself.

Amazon had already been an active advertiser on ChatGPT. Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC placed it as the top retail advertiser on the platform between April and August. That history follows OpenAI’s February start selling sponsored ChatGPT placements in the U.S., initially including retailers such as Best Buy and Williams-Sonoma.

An established ad business gets another sales channel

This is a channel partnership inside an expanding ad business, not the launch of ChatGPT advertising. OpenAI said on August 31 that ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days. It also said the service had tens of thousands of advertisers and was available in more than 40 countries.

For users, OpenAI says ads are clearly labeled and separate from answers, and that advertising does not influence ChatGPT’s answers. OpenAI also says advertisers do not receive private conversations and that people can control ad personalization. Whether that separation remains persuasive as more advertiser channels arrive is the central trust question.