Ads in ChatGPT: Why behavior matters more than targeting

Ads are now being tested in ChatGPT in the U.S., appearing for some users across different account types. For the first time, advertising is entering an AI answer environment – and that changes the rules for marketers.

We’ve used AI as part of ad creation or planning for years across Google, LinkedIn, and paid social. But placing ads inside an AI system that people trust to help them think, decide, and act is fundamentally different. This is not just another channel to plug into an existing media plan.

The biggest question is not targeting. It’s psychology. If advertisers simply replicate what works in search or social, performance will disappoint, and trust may suffer.

To succeed, brands need to understand how and why people use ChatGPT in the first place and what that means for attention, relevance, and the customer journey.

ChatGPT is a task environment, not a feed

People open ChatGPT to do something. That might be:

• Solving a specific problem.
• Refining a shortlist.
• Planning a trip.
• Writing something.
• Making sense of a complex decision. 

This is very different from feed-based platforms, where people expect to scroll, be interrupted, and discover content passively.

In task-based environments like ChatGPT, behavior changes:

• Goal shielding: Attention narrows to completing the task, filtering out anything that does not help progress.
• Interruption aversion: Unexpected distractions feel more irritating when someone is focused.
• Tunnel focus: Users prioritize clarity, speed, and momentum over exploration.

This is why clicks are likely to be harder to earn than many advertisers expect. If an ad does not help the user move forward with what they are trying to achieve, it will feel irrelevant, even if it is topically related.

Add to this the fact that trust in AI environments is still forming, and the tolerance for poor or interruptive advertising becomes even lower.

Dig deeper: OpenAI moves on ChatGPT ads with impression-based launch

When there are no search volumes, behavior becomes the strategy

For years, search volume has shaped how we plan.

Keywords told us what people wanted, how often they wanted it, and how competitive demand was. That logic underpinned both SEO and paid media strategy.

ChatGPT changes that.

People are not searching for keywords. They are outsourcing thinking. They describe situations, ask layered questions, and seek outcomes rather than information alone.

There is no query data to optimize against. Instead, success depends on understanding:

• What job the user is trying to get done.
• Which part of the journey they are choosing to outsource to AI.
• What kind of help they need in that moment.

This is where behavioral insight replaces keyword demand as the strategic foundation.

From keyword intent to behavior mode targeting

Rather than planning around queries, advertisers need to plan around behavior modes, the mindset a user is in when they turn to ChatGPT. 

A useful way to think about this is:

• Explore mode: The user is shaping a perspective or seeking inspiration.
• Ads that work here help people start, offering ideas, options, or reframing the problem.
• Reduce mode: The user is simplifying and narrowing choices. Effective ads reduce effort by clarifying differences and highlighting relevant trade-offs.
• Confirm mode: The user is looking for reassurance. This is where trust matters most: proof, reviews, guarantees, and credible signals.
• Act mode: The user wants to complete the task. Ads that remove friction perform best, clear pricing, availability, delivery, and next steps.

These modes closely mirror the human drivers we already recognize in search behavior: shaping perspective, informing, reassuring, and simplifying.

The difference is that ChatGPT compresses these moments into a single interface.

Dig deeper: What AI means for paid media, user behavior, and brand visibility

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In ChatGPT, relevance is functional, not topical

A key shift advertisers need to internalize is that relevance in ChatGPT is not about being related. It is about being useful.

An ad can be perfectly aligned to a category and still fail if it does not help the user complete their task.

In a task environment, anything that creates extra work or pulls attention away from the goal feels like friction. This means the creative rules change.

High-performing ads are likely to behave less like traditional advertising and more like:

• Tools.
• Templates.
• Guides.
• Checklists.
• Shortcuts.
• Decision aids.

They fit into the flow of what the user is doing.

Generic brand ads, pure awareness messaging, and content that feels like a detour are likely to underperform.

Dig deeper: Your ads are dying: How to spot and stop creative fatigue before it tanks performance

Helpful content becomes the bridge across channels

The same assets that make a strong ChatGPT ad – practical guides, frameworks, calculators, explainers, and reassurance-led content – also do much more than support paid performance. 

They build authority for SEO and generative optimization, earn coverage and credibility through digital PR, and reinforce brand trust across social and owned channels.

This is where silos start to break performance.

Paid media teams cannot create “helpful ads” in isolation if SEO teams are working on authority, PR teams are building trust signals, and brand teams are shaping voice independently. In AI-led discovery, these signals converge.

The most effective ads may borrow from:

• Brand voice for clarity and consistency.
• Trusted voice through reviews, experts, or third-party validation.
• Amplified voice via media coverage and recognizable authority.

The line between advertising, content, and credibility becomes increasingly blurred.

Measurement needs a reset

Judging ChatGPT ads purely on click-through rate risks missing their real impact.

In many cases, these ads may influence decisions without triggering an immediate click. They may help a brand enter a shortlist, feel safer, or be remembered when the user returns later through another channel.

More meaningful indicators may include:

• Shortlist inclusion.
• Brand recall.
• Assisted conversions.
• Branded search uplift.
• Direct traffic uplift.
• Downstream conversion lift.

This reinforces the need for teams to work more closely together. If performance is distributed across the journey, measurement and accountability must be too.

Dig deeper: AI tools for PPC, AI search, and social campaigns: What’s worth using now

The brands that win will understand behavior best

This is not simply a new ad format. We are looking at a behavioral shift.

The brands most likely to succeed will not be the ones that move fastest or spend the most. They will be the ones who understand:

• What people actually use ChatGPT for.
• Which moments of the journey are being outsourced to AI.
• How to support those moments without breaking trust.

A practical starting point is returning to jobs-to-be-done thinking. Map the actions that happen before someone buys, inquires, or commits and identify where AI reduces effort, uncertainty, or complexity.

From there, the question becomes more powerful than “how do we advertise here?”:

How can we be genuinely helpful at the moment it matters?

That mindset will not only shape performance in ChatGPT, but across the wider future of AI-led discovery. And in that world, behavioral intent will matter far more than keywords ever did.

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