On September 10, Amazon announced a partnership with OpenAI that lets advertisers place ads inside ChatGPT. The rollout begins as a pilot for a limited set of U.S. brands, with buying handled through Amazon DSP. Amazon, which has tightly restricted how AI services reach its retail storefront, is opening the advertising door first while keeping the store itself closed.

Buying runs through Amazon DSP

The new path lets advertisers already working in Amazon DSP add ChatGPT placements without changing how they run campaigns. At launch it is limited to select U.S. advertisers, and Amazon staff handle campaign setup and optimization as a managed service. Delta Vacations, the vacation packages arm of the airline, is named among the first brands taking part.

In its own announcement, Amazon frames conversational ads in chat as the fastest growing engagement opportunity for reaching both new and existing customers. Chris Conetta, director of omnichannel supply at Amazon DSP, said advertisers can now extend campaigns into the conversational platforms where their customers are actually spending time.

The buyer and the delivery engine are split

The most notable part of the design is how responsibilities are divided. Amazon builds and runs the campaigns, but OpenAI's advertising system decides when and where an ad is inserted. Ads appear as text or image units below a completed ChatGPT response and are clearly marked as sponsored.

In practice it works like this. A user asking ChatGPT for marathon training tips might see an ad for running shoes sold on Amazon placed under the answer. For targeting and measurement, advertisers can draw on Amazon's shopping, browsing, and streaming signals.

OpenAI holds the inventory, Amazon holds the demand and the customer relationships, and neither side gives up the part it is strong in. From an advertiser's point of view, it is simply one more surface inside a console they already use.

OpenAI's ad business is at a 1 billion dollar run rate

OpenAI began selling sponsored placements in ChatGPT in February 2026, starting with retailers such as Best Buy and Williams-Sonoma. That business has since reached an annualized run rate of 1 billion USD (about 153 billion yen). As of February, OpenAI said ChatGPT had reached 900 million weekly active users.

*1 USD = 153 JPY (close on September 11, 2026)

What makes the timing interesting is that Amazon was already buying on the platform before the partnership. According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Amazon quietly started advertising on ChatGPT in recent months and became the largest retail advertiser on the platform between April and August. It tested the channel itself, then opened the same inventory to its advertisers.

The shelf stays shut, the ad slot opens

Amazon has worked hard to keep AI services such as ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Gemini out of its storefront while investing in its own AI shopping features. This deal opens only the advertising layer, and the point of purchase stays on Amazon's side.

A Publicis and EMARKETER survey found that 69 percent of shoppers who use AI while shopping prefer to complete the purchase in a retailer's app or website, 14 percent choose a physical store, and only about 1 in 10 buy directly inside an AI interface. That reading, that the moment of purchase still belongs to retailers, is what makes opening the ad slot alone a reasonable move. EMARKETER expects Amazon's advertising business to more than double between 2024 and 2028.

Summary

On September 10, Amazon began piloting ChatGPT ad placements bought through Amazon DSP in the United States, in partnership with OpenAI. Amazon runs the campaigns while OpenAI controls delivery, and Delta Vacations is among the first participants. Keeping AI access to the store restricted while opening the advertising surface signals a company that wants a position at the new conversational entry point without handing over control of the purchase.

*The thumbnail image is AI generated and for illustration only