Who Is Actually Running ChatGPT Ads? Named Advertisers, Agencies and Partners
By The InPromptAds Team 7 min read
Last verified 15 August 2026. Version 1.0. Next scheduled review 15 September 2026.
A large share of the search traffic around ChatGPT ads is not people planning campaigns. It is people checking whether this is a real thing: do people advertise on ChatGPT, can you actually pay to advertise on ChatGPT, is this even live.
Until recently the honest answer was a shrug with a link to an OpenAI announcement. It is not any more. Here are the names and the dates.
The holding companies
Omnicom Media, Dentsu and WPP Media are participating in OpenAI's ad pilot. Reported by eMarketer on 10 February 2026. Advertisers in the pilot are paying roughly $60 CPMs for premium positioning.
The more useful detail in that reporting is why. eMarketer's read is that early ChatGPT ads favour learning over ROI, and that high CPMs combined with limited measurement skew participation toward brands buying influence and insight rather than performance.
That is an unusually candid thing for a channel's earliest buyers to have signalled, and it should change how a smaller advertiser reads their participation. Three of the largest media groups in the world being present is evidence the channel is real. It is not evidence the channel is performing, and the same reporting says so.
The adtech partner
Criteo became OpenAI's first adtech partner on 3 March 2026. Brands already buying through Criteo's commerce media platform can access ChatGPT inventory inside workflows they already run, and apply performance benchmarks they already trust.
This is the single clearest signal that the channel is being built as durable infrastructure rather than run as a test. Adtech integrations are expensive on both sides and nobody builds one for a pilot they intend to close.
Criteo also contributed the most-cited figure in the category: its aggregated data reports that traffic referred from LLM platforms including ChatGPT converts at roughly 1.5 times the rate of other referral sources. That is a statement about referred traffic, not about ad performance, and it gets quoted as the latter constantly.
The independent operators
Below the holding companies, a small number of agencies are publicly running or claiming to run live campaigns.
| Who | What they claim | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Opascope | Published fifteen days of live-account data: roughly 60,000 USD spend returning about 89,000 USD, 1.49x blended ROAS, 1.72 USD CPC, 2.35% conversion rate | The most substantive public disclosure in the category. One advertiser, one category, fifteen days, and Opascope did not present it as a benchmark |
| Solved6 | First and, at time of their publication, only UAE agency running live ChatGPT campaigns, operating through a Los Angeles office | Plausible and unverifiable from outside. The structure they describe is legitimate |
| Index Lab | Operator-level documentation on creative specs, verification failures and account setup that reads like first-hand account experience | Their published operational detail is more specific than most agencies with accounts |
| q1media | Aggregated multi-account observations | Reported |
And the disclosure that is missing from all of it: not one of these parties publishes approval rates, review timelines by vertical, or what actually happens in manual review for a regulated category. That information exists inside every one of these accounts and nobody has published it.
What OpenAI itself says about results
Worth putting next to the above, because it is the constraint on all of it.
OpenAI states there are no performance benchmarks across advertisers, industries or campaign types. Not "we have not released them yet." That they do not exist.
So the situation is: three global holding companies are buying, an adtech partner has integrated, a handful of independents have published single-account results, and the platform itself says there is no basis for comparison. All four of those are true at once, and any article presenting only the first three is selling.
Is it real, then?
Yes, and the useful version of that answer has three parts.
Real as inventory. Ads are serving, in seven markets, on the Free and Go tiers, priced on views at CPMs that clear.
Real as infrastructure. The Criteo integration, the geotargets catalogue with 249 countries in it, the availability page that changed twice in eight days, and documentation revised repeatedly through July all describe a product being built out rather than parked.
Not yet real as a measured performance channel. No benchmarks, no conversion attribution into advertiser systems, aggregated reporting with up to seven hours of lag, and the biggest buyers explicitly framing their spend as learning.
A category can be all three of those at the same time, and this one is.
What we cannot tell you
Which brands specifically are advertising. The reporting names agency groups, not their clients. We have not seen a published advertiser list.
Whether the pilot framing still holds. The learning-over-ROI reporting is from February 2026. Six months is a long time in a channel whose documentation changes weekly, and we have not found more recent reporting on holding-company posture.
Whether Opascope's numbers generalise. They almost certainly do not, and Opascope did not claim they would. One account is one account.
What happens in manual review for regulated verticals. Nobody has published it. It is the largest remaining information gap in the category.
Quick answers
Do companies actually advertise on ChatGPT? Yes. Ads are live in seven serving markets, and Omnicom Media, Dentsu and WPP Media are participating in OpenAI's pilot, reported by eMarketer in February 2026 at roughly $60 CPMs.
Which agencies are running ChatGPT ads? The holding companies named in reporting are Omnicom Media, Dentsu and WPP Media. Independently, Opascope has published live-account results, Solved6 claims live UAE client campaigns run through a Los Angeles office, and Index Lab publishes operator-level documentation.
Is Criteo integrated with ChatGPT ads? Yes. Criteo became OpenAI's first adtech partner on 3 March 2026, allowing brands to access ChatGPT inventory through Criteo's commerce media platform.
Are ChatGPT ads profitable for advertisers? There is no published basis to answer that at a category level. OpenAI states no performance benchmarks exist across advertisers, industries or campaign types. The one substantive public disclosure is Opascope's fifteen-day single-account result of 1.49x blended ROAS.
Why are big agencies buying if the measurement is limited? eMarketer's February 2026 reporting is that early participation favours learning over ROI, with high CPMs and limited measurement skewing the buyer set toward brands purchasing influence and insight rather than performance.
Sources
| Claim | Source | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Omnicom Media, Dentsu, WPP Media in pilot; roughly $60 CPMs; learning over ROI | eMarketer, 10 Feb 2026 | Reported |
| CPMs priced on views rather than clickthrough | eMarketer, 10 Feb 2026 | Reported |
| Criteo first adtech partner, 3 Mar 2026 | eMarketer, 3 Mar 2026 | Reported |
| LLM-referred traffic converts ~1.5x other referral sources | Criteo aggregated data, via eMarketer | Reported, vendor |
| 15-day live account: ~60,000 USD spend, ~89,000 USD return, 1.49x ROAS, 1.72 USD CPC, 2.35% conversion | opascope.com | Reported, single account |
| First and only UAE agency running live campaigns via a Los Angeles office | solved6.com | Reported, self-asserted |
| Aggregated multi-account observations | q1media.com | Reported |
| No performance benchmarks across advertisers, industries or campaign types | OpenAI advertiser FAQ | Confirmed, primary |
| Reporting lags delivery by up to 7 hours | OpenAI Help Center, Troubleshooting, 31 July 2026 | Confirmed, primary |
| Nine advertiser-eligible countries | OpenAI Help Center, fetched 15 Aug 2026 | Confirmed, primary |
Related reading
- Do ChatGPT ads actually work? — the three public numbers, and why they do not sum to a benchmark
- How to measure ChatGPT ads — what the platform reports
- ChatGPT ads changelog — dated record of every documented change
Changelog
15 August 2026. v1.0 published.
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The InPromptAds Team
Writes about AI-native advertising and the shift from search to conversation.
