MUMBAI: The ad click is getting a conversation makeover, with OpenAI giving advertisers more ways to turn a ChatGPT interaction into a potential customer journey.
OpenAI is expanding its advertising platform with a suite of AI-powered tools, including Sponsored Agents that allow users to start conversations with businesses after clicking an ad. The company is also adding AI capabilities to Ads Manager and integrating ChatGPT Ads with HubSpot and Shopify, signalling a push towards building an advertising ecosystem around ChatGPT rather than simply selling ad placements.
Sponsored Agents are currently being tested with select advertisers in the US. After encountering a relevant advertisement, users can choose to open a clearly labelled conversation with a business-sponsored AI agent.
The agent can answer questions about a product or service, help users compare or explore options and eventually direct them to the advertiser’s website when they are ready to take the next step. OpenAI said these conversations will remain separate from ChatGPT’s independent answers as well as the original conversation that the user began with ChatGPT.
That changes the traditional ad journey from impression-to-click into something closer to impression-to-conversation. Instead of simply sending a potential customer away to a website, advertisers can use the AI interaction to answer questions and continue the consideration process.
OpenAI is also bringing more automation into campaign creation and management through Ads Manager. Advertisers can use natural-language prompts to create, modify and analyse campaigns, including turning a website or campaign brief into an advertising campaign.
The tools can also review campaign performance and provide recommendations on possible next steps, bringing more of the advertising workflow into a conversational interface.
Creative development is getting an AI layer as well. While drafting an advertisement, marketers can receive suggested copy and imagery based on their landing page and campaign objective. They retain the ability to review and edit those recommendations before using them.
An additional opt-in feature allows AI to customise advertising copy based on the context of a conversation. It can adapt existing headlines and descriptions and translate ad copy into a user’s preferred language, potentially allowing the same campaign to take on different forms depending on the audience and interaction.
OpenAI is also taking ChatGPT Ads into established marketing and commerce platforms. The first integrations are with HubSpot and Shopify, bringing campaign management closer to the systems businesses already use to manage customers and products.
HubSpot customers will be able to connect their ChatGPT Ads accounts, create campaigns, monitor performance and follow up on leads within HubSpot, using customer information available through the CRM.
US-based Shopify merchants, meanwhile, can use the ChatGPT Ads app to create and manage campaigns. Their products are already connected through Shopify Catalog, allowing merchants to run advertisements and track performance from the platform.
The Shopify integration is scheduled to expand internationally from September 23 in markets where ChatGPT Ads is available.
Taken together, the new tools point to a broader shift in OpenAI’s advertising strategy. The company is connecting the ad itself with AI-assisted creative work, campaign management, customer conversations, CRM systems and commerce platforms.
For advertisers, that could mean fewer hand-offs between seeing an ad, asking a question, evaluating a product and taking action. For ChatGPT, meanwhile, the advertising model is beginning to look less like a billboard inside a chatbot and more like an ecosystem built around the conversation itself.