Amazon Ads Brings ChatGPT Ads to Amazon DSP in a U.S. Pilot: What Changes for Brands Selling on Amazon
Amazon Ads and OpenAI launched a U.S. pilot for buying ChatGPT Ads through Amazon DSP. What Amazon as a buying gateway means, how it differs from Criteo, what remains undisclosed, and how merchants should plan for discovery split between AI recommendations and ads.
Key Takeaways
- On September 10, Amazon Ads announced a partnership with OpenAI and began a pilot that lets select U.S. advertisers buy ChatGPT Ads through Amazon DSP. Amazon runs the campaigns, OpenAI's ads system makes delivery decisions, and ads appear below ChatGPT's answers
- Amazon has restricted outside AI agents, yet it uses ChatGPT as a place to be discovered while keeping the purchase on Amazon. The pilot extends that same line to its advertisers
- Product discovery in ChatGPT is splitting into two paths: recommendations inside the answer and ads below it. Because ads do not influence answers, merchants need to work on product data and ad measurement as separate tracks
Amazon DSP can now buy ChatGPT ad inventory
Amazon Ads has announced a partnership with OpenAI to support advertising in ChatGPT. Learn how to expand your campaigns with a conversational ad experience on ChatGPT.
advertising.amazon.comOn September 10, 2026, Amazon Ads announced a partnership with OpenAI in an official blog post. Through Amazon DSP (the demand-side platform advertisers use to buy inventory across many media), advertisers can extend their campaigns into conversational ads on ChatGPT. For now it is a pilot limited to select U.S. advertisers.
The key is the division of roles. According to an Amazon spokesperson speaking to CNBC, Amazon sets up and manages campaigns, while OpenAI's ads system controls all ad delivery decisions. Ads appear as text or image units beneath ChatGPT responses.
According to Marketing Dive, the offering is a managed service in which Amazon's team helps set up and optimize campaigns, and inventory can be bought on both a CPC and CPM basis. Amazon also offers product feed ads that automatically generate assets from product catalogs, and advertisers receive aggregated data such as impressions, clicks and cost per result.
Several things remain undisclosed: minimum spend, timing for general availability, expansion beyond the U.S., and whether advertisers can measure how ChatGPT ad exposure translates into purchases on Amazon. Nor has Amazon said whether ad destinations are limited to Amazon product pages.
What it means for Amazon to become a buying gateway
Using a Party It Blocks as a Discovery Channel
Amazon has been defensive toward outside AI agents. According to CNBC, as of December 2025 it had blocked 47 bots, including those of major AI companies, and it has fought Perplexity's agent in court.
Ads were a different matter. In June, Business Insider reported that Amazon itself had started buying ads on ChatGPT. An Amazon ad appeared below a conversation about coffee makers, and clicks led back to Amazon's storefront. Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC showed that Amazon was the top retail advertiser on ChatGPT from April through August.
This partnership can be read as productizing the approach Amazon had already tested on itself: get discovered in ChatGPT, complete the purchase on Amazon. eMarketer likewise argues that Amazon gains visibility in AI without committing to a commerce partnership that would cost it control of shopper data and the customer experience. In a Publicis and eMarketer survey, only 1 in 10 AI-assisted digital shoppers chose to buy within an AI interface, while 69% bought on retailers' apps or websites.
How Far Can Shopping Data and Conversational Context Combine?
Citing Adweek, eMarketer says advertisers can use Amazon's first-party data to target ChatGPT users. Amazon's official announcement itself, however, does not explain how its data is used on ChatGPT.
OpenAI imposes constraints of its own. Its help article states that advertisers never receive chats, chat history or memories, and only get aggregated data. Amazon data may inform ad planning, but conversations do not flow to Amazon. How the two are actually matched remains undisclosed, and it is the most important point to verify during the pilot.
For OpenAI, Access to a Huge Advertiser Base
On August 31, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate and that it had more than 50 technology and measurement partners (background in this article). Now it connects to the advertiser base of Amazon, whose ad business neared $70 billion in 2025.
How it differs from Criteo: the data and operations you bring
In March 2026, Criteo became the first ad tech partner, and since June advertisers in Japan have been able to buy through Criteo.
| Item | OpenAI Ads Manager (direct) | Via Criteo | Via Amazon DSP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | May 2026 (self-serve) | March 2026 (first ad tech partner) | Announced September 10, 2026 (pilot) |
| Model | Advertisers run campaigns themselves | Criteo-supported buying, also available in self-serve Criteo GO | Managed service with Amazon's team helping set up and optimize |
| Markets | Available in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa since August 31 | 51 markets including Japan, the UK and South Korea | Select U.S. advertisers only |
| What you bring | Pixel, Conversions API, product feeds, custom audiences | Normalized product catalogs and cross-channel measurement | Amazon's campaign operations and first-party data (details of use on ChatGPT undisclosed) |
| Delivery decisions | OpenAI | OpenAI | OpenAI |
Whichever route you buy through, OpenAI makes the delivery decisions. The difference is the data and operations you bring. Amazon DSP's advantage is that advertisers already spending on Amazon can add ChatGPT without changing their setup. Criteo's results are covered in this article.
Another conversational surface alongside Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus)
Amazon also has its own conversational discovery surface. In May 2026, Rufus was folded into Alexa for Shopping, turning the search bar into an AI entry point. Sponsored placements inside conversations are already running.
For brands using Amazon Ads, there are now two conversational ad surfaces: Alexa for Shopping, which reaches people searching inside Amazon, and ChatGPT, which reaches people comparing options outside it. The former completes the purchase inside Amazon. The latter ends at sending the click.
Caveats: measurement and trust
Measurement comes first. In MediaPost's reporting, one agency said a campaign showing 57 clicks in OpenAI's dashboard produced fewer than 20 visits in Google Analytics, and another said its click-through rate was only about 0.6%. The data returned through Amazon is aggregated as well, so this problem has not gone away.
Amazon has its own trust issue. The FTC and 22 state attorneys general have sued Amazon, alleging it added hidden surcharges to its search ad auctions. Amazon rejects the claim that it harmed advertisers or consumers, but Digiday noted that the ChatGPT expansion arrives just as that scrutiny comes into focus. In the same article, eMarketer analyst Nate Elliott said OpenAI is still building the basics of an ad sales operation, including its team, technology, formats and pricing. Ads appear only to Free and Go users, not to Plus or Pro subscribers.
Product discovery in ChatGPT becomes two paths: recommendations and ads
Products can now be found in ChatGPT through recommendations inside the answer and through ads below it. The first is the domain of LLMO (work to get your information picked up in AI answers). And OpenAI states that ads run on separate systems and do not influence answers. Budget cannot buy a recommendation.
The two paths are not substitutes. Even if the answer recommends your product, a competitor's ad can structurally appear right below it, and if you are not among the options compared in the answer, users have narrowed their choices before they ever see an ad. We covered how to prioritize in this article.
For brands advertising on Amazon, catalog quality now directly affects ads too. Product feed ads build assets from catalogs, so missing attributes or vague product names show up in the ads themselves. This is the same work described in LLMO for e-commerce sites. On measurement, it is hard to judge sales impact from aggregated platform data alone, so if you join the pilot, decide on your own supporting indicators first, such as changes in branded search or post-purchase surveys.
Note that this pilot is U.S.-only. For now, the practical way to test ChatGPT Ads in Japan is through Criteo.
Conclusion
Amazon has opened ChatGPT to its advertisers as a place to be discovered, without handing its catalog to outside AI agents. It has started selling, as an ad product, a division of labor in which discovery happens in ChatGPT and the purchase happens on Amazon.
The two things to watch next are how far Amazon's shopping data and ChatGPT's conversational context will be combined, including whether measurement through to purchases on Amazon emerges, and whether the pilot expands beyond the U.S.
