OpenAI has started testing a format called Sponsored Agents inside ChatGPT, giving users the option to open a separate, labeled conversation with a business after they click on an ad. The feature is live only with select advertisers in the United States. It signals OpenAI’s clearest move yet toward treating ChatGPT itself as a sales channel, not just an ad-supported answer engine.
In the labeled exchange, a user can describe what they are looking for, ask follow-up questions, and then click through to the advertiser’s site when ready, according to OpenAI. The company was explicit that this exchange sits apart from ChatGPT’s own answers and from the conversation the user was originally having, a distinction that matters for anyone auditing what surfaces are eligible for ad placement inside the product.
Sponsored Agents is one line in a broader update OpenAI sent to advertisers, reported by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable on September 16. The rest of the update reads like a standard ad-platform maturation pass: conversion optimization with impression billing is now generally available, attribution windows can be set to 7, 14, or 30 days for clicks and 0 or 1 day for views, and platform targeting can be split across Android, iOS, and desktop web. None of that is unique to conversational commerce; it is Meta- and Google Ads-style tooling arriving late to a much younger platform.
Two integrations widen distribution meaningfully. US-based Shopify merchants can now connect a product catalog directly through the ChatGPT Ads app in the Shopify App Store, with international rollout planned later this month. HubSpot users can create and track ChatGPT ads and follow up on leads without leaving that platform. Both moves lower the operational cost of testing the channel for merchants who already run paid search and social from those tools.
The advertiser update lands one day after OpenAI reportedly moved to bar rival image and voice AI tools from advertising inside ChatGPT, and two days after Amazon opened a DSP pilot to buy ChatGPT ad inventory. Read together, the pattern is a platform tightening who gets to sell inside the chat window while widening how deeply an approved advertiser can engage a user once they are there.
For brands, a Sponsored Agent is functionally a scoped, ad-triggered chatbot with a guardrail: OpenAI is drawing a hard line between what ChatGPT says on its own and what a business’s agent says under a sponsorship label, which is the mechanism that will determine whether users trust the format or route around it. AI-assisted ad creation, which suggests copy and imagery from a landing page, remains in testing with wider availability described as “coming weeks,” and text customization that rewrites headlines per conversation is opt-in, not default. OpenAI has not published performance data on Sponsored Agents, only a description of the mechanic and a screenshot.
Search and content teams should treat this as a test, not a channel decision. Advertisers in the US Sponsored Agents pilot should track completion rate on the agent conversation separately from ad click-through, since a labeled chat that fails to answer follow-up questions well could suppress click-through to the actual site rather than improve it.
Reported by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable on September 16, 2026.
