• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, 11 hours ago

As OpenAI tries to control its future in a precarious balancing act by managing a high-stakes evolution, company engineers are slamming down on the technological gas pedal.

The tech giant attempts to tighten its grip on the ad industry, but faces immense pressure to deliver groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) models as it tries to compete with Google, Microsoft and others. On top of all this, CEO Sam Altman seems to want to rewrite the company's corporate structure as it weathers significant internal shifts.

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The pace of change at OpenAI is enough to give any advertiser whiplash, because it seems trapped in a breathless cycle of radical change. 

How OpenAI navigates this turbulent era will define the next decade of its digital progress.

Criteo Go, an AI-powered self-service performance ad platform for small and medium-sized businesses, has added ChatGPT Ads inventory, allowing smaller and medium-size businesses to run ads offered by OpenAI's platform.

Apparel, home furnishings, consumer electronics, automotive and beauty lead the advertising categories on ChatGPT Ads through Criteo, as the company expands advertising into the U.K., Japan and South Korea, following earlier launches in the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

About 2,000 brands now advertise on ChatGPT through Criteo since the ad-tech partner began working with OpenAI.

Earlier this morning, Getty Images also announced a multi-year agreement with OpenAI that put its licensed content libraries inside ChatGPT's search and discovery features. It sent Getty Images stock up about 200% in premarket trading on Monday.

All the news comes on the kickoff day for Cannes Lions in France, and after OpenAI expanded its advertising infrastructure into the U.K., giving businesses access to a self-serve "Ads Manager" for ChatGPT.

The self-serve interface allows businesses to organize by campaigns, tools, billing and settings, and the interface supports user management and campaign controls accessible through simplified navigation.

OpenAI's Nathan Lam, who identifies himself as "a member of the marketing staff, spoke with analysts at NewStreet Research a couple of weeks ago. He told analysts that ChatGPT has 900 million weekly active users -- unchanged from the figure first disclosed by the company almost four months ago on February 27.

Most advertisers' budgets for OpenAI range between $10,000 and $25,000, while some spend more than $100,000.

Several of Kepler's group advertisers have allocated budgets throughout the remainder of the year.

NewStreet analysts suggest this is because advertisers have begun to move past test budgets.

"These remain small relative to scaled Search and Retail Media campaigns, but ChatGPT ads are beginning to look more like a recurring media-plan line item," NewStreet analysts wrote in a research note.

It's interesting to read NewStreet's research note and how it describes Lam’s primary themes as opportunities for brands to connect with consumers through conversational behavior in ChatGPT.

While traditional search often captures what the user looks for, a ChatGPT conversation reveals why they want it, purchase constraints and tradeoffs shaping their decision, according to the analysis.

Approximately 20% of ChatGPT conversations show shopping intent, roughly in line with Google Search benchmarks for ad coverage, according to the analysis.

Google Chief Business Officer Phillip Schindler recently noted that figure is rising because of AI Search, likely driven by higher commercial intent in visual AI search like Google Lens and greater context in AI Overviews and AI Mode. 

There's no shortage of news coming from OpenAI. It appears that Dean Ball -- author of the Hyperdimensional Substack and AI expert who spent much of 2025 advising the White House on emerging technologies before moving to the Foundation for American Innovation -- has moved on again to OpenAI.

Ball spoke in a podcast about these themes while working with others on America's AI Action Plan. He helped to draft the plan while serving at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The podcast touched on many topics such as his disappointment in the plan leaving some topics on the "cutting room floor." Topics like the adoption of AI in some healthcare areas such as keeping hospital records organized, and in Veteran Affairs, which has huge amounts of data.