Why agentic commerce will matter more than ChatGPT ads

Not per week goes by with out me studying about ChatGPT advertisements in my LinkedIn feed. I’m responsible of it, too. 

There’s a lot occurring so rapidly. The product feed integrations, the Adverts Supervisor beta, and the inevitable comparisons to Google’s dominance in search promoting. 

Whereas it’s a compelling narrative for companies seeking to drive new enterprise, it’s additionally short-sighted. The actual shift isn’t promoting on LLMs like ChatGPT. It’s occurring in checkout flows, voice assistants, and agentic commerce infrastructure, the place the transaction itself turns into the advert unit. 

The manufacturers quietly profitable this subsequent cycle are refining their product information to make sure they issue into AI-powered buy selections.

ChatGPT Adverts is structurally weak

Referral visitors from ChatGPT to the remainder of the online grew 206% in 2025, based on Semrush’s evaluation of 17 months of U.S. clickstream information. That’s the headline most individuals stopped at.

What they didn’t learn was the footnote: that development is pushed by deeper engagement from present customers, not by viewers growth. ChatGPT’s U.S. consumer base has been primarily flat since September 2025. The individuals who use it are utilizing it extra. However the addressable viewers isn’t rising.

This clearly issues for those who’re attempting to construct an promoting enterprise. Advert income scales with attain, and attain requires a rising viewers. With out new customers coming in, you’re working the usual sequence (construct an viewers after which monetize at scale) backward. 

OpenAI’s leaked financials present one other structural problem: $13 billion in income towards $34 billion in complete prices and bills in 2025, translating to an working lack of practically $21 billion. 

On the intense aspect, OpenAI spent $2.37 to generate each $1 in income in 2024. By 2025, that ratio had improved to $1.60 per greenback. Progress, however not practically sufficient, or quick sufficient. It’s no shock OpenAI postponed its IPO until next year.

To place these numbers in perspective, Amazon misplaced $30 million the yr it went public. Google and Meta had been already worthwhile earlier than their IPOs. OpenAI isn’t enjoying in the identical league. 

The dimensions of the guess is not like something the tech trade has tried earlier than. How lengthy earlier than buyers pull again? Your guess is pretty much as good as mine.

OpenAI’s grasp plan is agentic

Right here’s what the ChatGPT Adverts narrative misses: Adverts are a defensive transfer, not a strategic imaginative and prescient. Sam Altman has always been against them. 

However OpenAI needed to understand that to fund its dollar-hungry grasp plan, it wanted one thing to assist steadiness the books, no less than partially.

So what’s that grasp plan? Look elsewhere for a clearer view.

At Google I/O 2026, Google launched Universal Cart, constructing on Common Commerce Protocol (UCP), infrastructure that lets AI brokers full purchases in your behalf. This isn’t a buying tab redesign. It’s a transaction layer between intent and buy, with Gemini deciding what will get really helpful and purchased. For those who’re skeptical, keep in mind you may already onboard UCP. That is occurring at present, not in some distant future.

It’s the identical story at Amazon. The corporate mixed Rufus, its knowledgeable buying assistant utilized by greater than 300 million clients in 2025, and Alexa+, its customized AI assistant obtainable throughout a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of units, right into a unified expertise referred to as Alexa for Shopping. 

The result’s a floor that allows clients to automate deal-finding and routine purchases based mostly on customized insights. Like Gemini, Alexa can full the transaction, dramatically shortening the space from advert impression to buy.

It’s the identical story at OpenAI. The corporate already has built-in product feeds in Adverts Supervisor. You’d assume it’s a fundamental function as a result of Google, Meta, and Amazon all have it. However that quickly in a brand-new promoting platform? 

OpenAI launching product feed advertisements in 2026 isn’t an promoting innovation. It’s a platform reaching for acquainted income streams whereas the extra attention-grabbing structure takes form beneath the floor.

Dig deeper: Why product feeds need an organic strategy for AI search

Many of the trade is asking the unsuitable query. The query isn’t, “Ought to I check ChatGPT Adverts?” (Clearly, you need to.) And even, “Ought to I diversify past Google?” (Once more, clearly you need to.)

The suitable query is: “Is my product information prepared for agentic commerce?”

As a result of when an AI agent — whether or not it’s Alexa, Google’s buying agent, or no matter OpenAI builds subsequent — makes a purchase order suggestion on behalf of a consumer, it gained’t pull out of your marketing campaign creatives. It’ll pull out of your product feed. The cleanliness and completeness of that information will decide whether or not you exist within the suggestion.

This is identical transition we’ve lived by earlier than, simply at a special layer of the stack.

When Google moved from key phrases to audiences to intent alerts, the advertisers who gained had been those with cleaner conversion monitoring and stronger first-party information foundations. When Meta moved to Benefit+ and black-box optimization, the winners constructed higher inventive programs.

It’s the identical sample right here: Knowledge is king. Agentic commerce applies the identical dynamic to the transaction layer.

I do know. The guidelines isn’t glamorous. 

• Make sure that your product feeds are full, correct, and up to date in close to actual time. 
• Guarantee your structured information — product attributes, availability, profitability, and extra — is correctly applied throughout your catalog. 
• Put money into API integrations with the platforms constructing agentic infrastructure. 

Backside line: Deal with your product information the way in which you need to’ve been treating your conversion monitoring for the final decade. It’s a aggressive benefit, not a upkeep activity.

Dig deeper: Winning the AI decision layer: From AI discovery to agentic commerce

The actual battle isn’t within the advert console

ChatGPT Adverts will generate some income. It’ll appeal to some advertisers, produce some case research, and exist as a line merchandise in some media plans. That’s wonderful.

Nevertheless it gained’t be the following Google Adverts. It gained’t scale right into a duopoly-level promoting machine. The viewers ceiling is actual, the fee construction is brutal, and the aggressive moat — the factor that made Google’s search advertisements irreplaceable for 20 years — merely isn’t there.

The tidal wave isn’t within the advert console. It’s within the infrastructure being constructed round activity completion, automated buying, and agent-to-agent commerce. Google and Amazon are already establishing it. The manufacturers that present up there gained’t do it by higher bidding methods. They’ll do it by higher information. Begin there.