September 30, 2026
Something quite interesting is happening with advertising in ChatGPT.
And if, like us, you hadn't really thought about what an advert inside ChatGPT might actually look like, it's worth knowing about.
Because OpenAI is now testing ads that you can actually have a conversation with.
They're called Sponsored Agents.
It sounds more complicated than it is.
So here's what's happening.
In simple terms, Sponsored Agents are a new type of ChatGPT advertising being tested by OpenAI.
Instead of clicking an ad and immediately being taken to a company's website, you can choose to start a separate conversation with an AI agent representing that business.
You can ask questions about its products or services and, when you're ready, follow a link through to the company's website.
So the advert doesn't just show you something.
You can talk to it.
This is an important distinction.
We're not talking about Google.
These ads appear inside ChatGPT itself.
Imagine you're using ChatGPT and you type:
"I'm looking for some project management software for a team of 20. We use HubSpot and don't want anything too complicated."
ChatGPT gives you its normal answer.
Underneath that answer, you may also see a clearly labelled sponsored ad that's relevant to what you're talking about.
The advert is separate from ChatGPT's answer. The advertiser hasn't paid to get its business included in the answer itself.
With a Sponsored Agent, you could then choose to start a separate conversation with the advertiser.
So perhaps you ask:
"How much would this cost for 20 people?"
"Does it integrate with HubSpot?"
"How long does it take to set up?"
"What's the difference between you and this other product?"
The company's AI agent can answer those questions.
That's the interesting bit.
Yes, but only in a very limited way.
Advertising inside ChatGPT is already live in the UK.
Sponsored Agents are much newer. At the time of writing, OpenAI is testing them with selected advertisers in the US.
So don't expect every advert you see in ChatGPT to suddenly start talking to you.
We're right at the beginning of this.
But the idea behind it is interesting enough that we think marketers should probably be paying attention.
Think about how most online advertising works now.
Someone sees an advert.
Something catches their attention.
They click.
They arrive on your website.
Then the website has to do the hard work.
It explains what you do, answers questions, builds trust and hopefully convinces that person to enquire or buy.
Sponsored Agents potentially add something new to that journey.
Because some of those questions could be answered before the person even reaches your website.
Imagine someone is looking for a recruitment company.
They might want to know:
"Do you recruit marketing people in Manchester?"
"What are your fees?"
"What happens if the person we hire leaves?"
"Can you help us work out what salary we should be paying?"
"Do you work with businesses our size?"
At the moment, they might visit several recruitment websites looking for those answers.
Or fill in a form.
Or pick up the phone.
Or, quite possibly, fail to find what they need quickly enough and leave.
Now imagine they could ask those questions from an advert and get useful answers immediately.
By the time they reach the recruitment company's website or speak to an actual recruiter, they could already know quite a lot about the business.
Which raises an interesting question.
We don't think websites are about to disappear.
There have been quite enough "AI is going to kill..." predictions already.
But the job your website does could start to change.
If people increasingly use AI to research businesses and answer straightforward questions, they may not need to visit quite as many pages before deciding whether they're interested.
For years, digital marketing has spent a lot of time trying to get people to click.
SEO gets you found.
Paid ads bring people to your website.
Landing pages try to turn those visitors into enquiries.
But what happens if the customer can simply ask:
"Is this right for me?"
And get a useful answer before they've even arrived?
This is the part we find particularly interesting.
If AI is going to answer questions about your company, then your company needs to be very good at answering questions.
It sounds obvious.
But think about how many businesses struggle to clearly explain:
What do you actually do?
Who is it for?
How much does it cost?
Why are you different?
What happens if something goes wrong?
Why should somebody choose you?
Those answers need to be clear, accurate and useful.
Not buried halfway down a website underneath several paragraphs about being passionate, innovative and customer-centric.
This is where it comes back into our world.
We're not suggesting marketing teams will suddenly start hiring hundreds of Sponsored Agent Managers.
LinkedIn has enough unusual job titles already.
But it could make certain skills increasingly useful.
Marketers who genuinely understand their customers.
People who know the product they're marketing, rather than just how to promote it.
People who can take something complicated and explain it simply.
People who understand the questions customers ask before they buy.
And marketers who are comfortable working closely with sales, product and customer service.
Because if an advert can start answering someone's buying questions, the line between advertising, marketing and sales gets a little less obvious.
There's another difference worth knowing about.
Traditional search advertising has been heavily built around keywords.
Someone searches for something and advertisers compete to appear against that search.
ChatGPT has something else to work with.
The conversation.
OpenAI says its advertising system can consider the context and intent of someone's current conversation when deciding which ads are relevant.
So someone might not type:
"Marketing recruitment agency Manchester."
They could instead be having a conversation saying:
"We're a 40-person agency in Manchester and need to hire our first Head of Marketing, but we're not sure what salary we'd need to pay."
That's a much richer picture of what that person actually needs.
For marketers, understanding those real questions and conversations could become increasingly valuable.
And that's important to say.
Sponsored Agents are still being tested.
We don't know whether people will love talking to them.
We don't know how widely businesses will use them.
And we certainly don't know whether they'll fundamentally change the way people use websites.
But they are another interesting sign of how the way we find information online is changing.
For years, marketers have asked:
How do we get people to find us?
Perhaps we'll increasingly need to ask:
When they do find us, can we give them a really good answer?
That's probably a useful question for marketing teams to be asking anyway.
Yes. Ads can appear inside ChatGPT for eligible users and ChatGPT advertising is now available in the UK. Ads are clearly labelled as sponsored and are kept separate from ChatGPT's normal answers.
A Sponsored Agent lets someone start a separate conversation with an AI representative of a business after seeing its ad in ChatGPT. They can ask questions about the company's products or services before choosing whether to visit its website.
Not currently. Although ChatGPT advertising is available in the UK, Sponsored Agents are currently being tested with selected advertisers in the US.
No. ChatGPT ads appear within ChatGPT rather than Google search. OpenAI says its advertising system can use the context and intent of a conversation when determining which ads are relevant.
There's no evidence that websites are disappearing. What could change is how much research and questioning happens before somebody visits a company's website.
