Amazon announced Thursday a partnership with OpenAI to enable its advertisers to run campaigns within ChatGPT, beginning with select U.S. brands.
The move signals Amazon's practical acknowledgment that ChatGPT—with 900 million weekly active users—has become a material marketing channel. Amazon manages campaign setup and administration; OpenAI controls ad delivery. Ad units appear as text or images below ChatGPT responses and are labeled as sponsored content.
OpenAI's ad business recently hit a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate. The company began selling sponsored placements in February, initially with retailers such as Best Buy and Williams-Sonoma. Delta Vacations also participates in the current trial.
The partnership reflects a strategic reversal. Amazon historically restricted access to ChatGPT, Claude and Google's Gemini on its webstore while building its own AI shopping tools. Yet between April and August, Amazon emerged as the top retail company advertising on ChatGPT, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
"Conversational ad formats represent the fastest growing engagement opportunity for brands," Amazon stated in a blog post. Chris Conetta, director of omnichannel supply at Amazon's demand-side advertising platform, said advertisers can now "extend their campaigns further into where their customers are actively spending time in conversational chat platforms."
