May 7, 2026
ChatGPT Now Has Ads — And Your Competitors Can Pay to Show Up When Customers Ask for Recommendations
OpenAI just opened their self-serve Ads Manager to US businesses. Here’s what it looks like and why you should care right now.
Your competitors can now pay to show up when customers ask ChatGPT for recommendations.
OpenAI just opened their self-serve Ads Manager to US businesses. That means when someone types “best accountant in Denver” or “which CRM should I use” into ChatGPT, paid ads can now appear in the response. In the video above, I walk through what those ads actually look like inside ChatGPT — and I am going to be testing this myself so you can follow along and see the real-world process and results as they happen.
This changes the game. For years, we optimized for one search engine. Then Google added AI Overviews. Now ChatGPT has advertising too. If your marketing strategy only accounts for Google, you are ignoring an entire channel where your customers are already asking questions.
ChatGPT Just Opened a Brand-New Advertising Channel — And You Can Get In Early
OpenAI quietly made history this week by launching a self-serve Ads Manager for ChatGPT. For the first time, any US business can pay to appear directly within ChatGPT conversations, complete with cost-per-click bidding and conversion tracking.
This is fundamentally different from traditional search ads because the user is having a conversation, not scanning a list of blue links. They are asking for a recommendation. And now your business can be the answer that appears.
Early adopters on new advertising platforms historically get better rates before competition drives up costs. Remember Google Ads in 2005? Facebook Ads in 2011? This moment has that same energy. The businesses that move now will lock in positioning and learn the platform before their competitors even know it exists.
What This Means for Your Business: A completely new channel has opened where your potential customers are actively asking questions and looking for recommendations. If you are only running Google Ads, you are now missing an entire discovery platform. The gap between businesses that act on this early and those that wait will widen quickly.
What to Do This Week: Sign up for the ChatGPT Ads Manager beta even if you are not ready to spend money yet. Get familiar with the interface. Then allocate a small test budget of $500 to $1,000 to experiment with high-intent conversational queries related to your services. Focus on questions your ideal customers would actually type into ChatGPT, not traditional keywords. I will be doing exactly this and documenting the process — follow along to see what works.
Read the full story at Search Engine Journal →
While You’re At It: Audit Your Google AI Overview Presence Too
The businesses winning right now are not picking sides between Google and ChatGPT. They are showing up in both places. So while you are exploring the new ChatGPT platform, Google made some moves this week worth knowing about too.
Google announced five significant improvements to how they link to websites from AI Overviews, including larger favicons, more prominent inline citations, and subscription labels. If Google’s AI cites your content, users can now see and click your link much more easily than before.
What This Means for Your Business: Getting cited in AI Overviews now has real traffic potential. The zero-click concern has not disappeared, but Google is making it significantly easier for users to visit the sources behind AI answers. Only sites that actually get cited benefit though — if you are not being referenced, these changes do not help you.
What to Do: Search your core keywords in Google and see if your content gets cited in the AI Overview. If not, that is your content priority for Q2. Create content that directly and confidently answers the questions your customers ask, and make sure you are the most authoritative, complete source on the topic.
Read the full story at Search Engine Roundtable →
Ranking in Search and Showing Up in AI Are Now Two Different Things
Microsoft explained this week that the content that ranks well in regular search is not necessarily what gets selected for AI answers. They call this second evaluation system a “grounding index.”
Traditional search looks at relevance, links, and user engagement. AI grounding requires something more specific: content that commits to facts with high confidence and clear attribution. If your page hedges its claims or does not clearly establish your expertise, it might rank on page one but never get pulled into an AI answer.
What This Means for Your Business: You now have two optimization targets. Your content needs to rank well AND be trustworthy enough for AI systems to cite. Vague content that avoids taking positions will not cut it in either arena.
What to Do: Review your key service pages with fresh eyes. Do they make clear, confident factual statements? Add specific claims, cite your sources where relevant, and explicitly state your credentials and experience. AI systems need to trust you — give them reasons to.
Read the full story at Search Engine Roundtable →
The AI Content Shortcut Just Hit a Dead End
If anyone has suggested you use AI to quickly publish dozens of blog posts to boost your search visibility, here is a cautionary tale. Google’s quality thresholds are quietly crushing sites that published high volumes of AI-generated content, and the traffic drops are severe.
This is not Google punishing AI content specifically. What they are punishing is low-quality, unhelpful content published at scale. Pumping out 50 AI-written articles a month without serious editorial oversight creates exactly that kind of content.
What This Means for Your Business: The quantity over quality approach to content is officially dead. If you have been tempted by services promising rapid content scaling, this is your warning sign. The only sustainable path is content that genuinely helps your audience.
What to Do: Treat every AI draft as a starting point that requires significant human editing. Add your original insights, fact-check everything, and include examples from your actual experience. Four to six excellent, helpful posts per month will always outperform twenty mediocre ones.
Read the full story at Search Engine Journal →
One More Thing: Check Your Google Ads Call Recording Settings Before July 1
If you run Google Ads with call extensions, heads up: call recording will default to “Yes” starting July 1. Google will automatically record customer calls unless you opt out. Check your state’s consent laws — two-party consent states require disclosure. If you are in healthcare, legal, or financial services, review this with your compliance team before the switch.
The search landscape just got more complex — but also more full of opportunity. The ChatGPT advertising platform is the biggest new channel to open up in years, and most businesses have not even heard about it yet. That is your window.
I am testing the ChatGPT Ads Manager myself and will be sharing everything — the setup process, the costs, and the actual results. Follow along here and on my social channels so you do not miss it.
Have you searched for your business in ChatGPT yet to see what it says about you? Drop a comment below — and let me know if you are going to test the new ads platform. I would love to compare notes.