As OpenAI tests ads in ChatGPT, companies like The Knot are experimenting with conversational placements and AI-native discovery.
This month, OpenAI officially entered the advertising business. “Today, we’re beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S.,” the company wrote in a blog post on February 9. The test will be visible to logged-in adult users on OpenAI’s Free and Go tiers, while Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education users will not see ads.
For marketers, the change offers an opportunity: The ads appear within an active conversation, often when a user is researching or comparing options.
OpenAI stressed that, “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you, and we keep your conversations with ChatGPT private from advertisers.” Ads are labeled and separated from the platform’s main response, and are matched based on “the topic of your conversation, your past chats and past interactions with ads.” Advertisers receive only aggregate performance data, such as views or clicks, according to OpenAI.
The Knot Worldwide is among the early participants in the pilot, which launched last week. The company operates a wedding-planning marketplace that connects couples with more than 200,000 vendors, from venues and photographers to bridal boutiques and makeup artists. The Knot Worldwide declined to disclose its revenue, but the Associated Press reported the company generated roughly $400 million in 2022.
“ChatGPT and AI search is an interesting space for us,” Jenny Lewis, CMO and president of Global Media Solutions at The Knot Worldwide, told Glossy. “We’re seeing today that about 36% of couples are using some form of AI in their wedding planning, nearly double what it was last year.”
That change is already affecting vendor search behavior. “One of the primary use cases emerging is around finding vendors to help bring their wedding to life,” Lewis said. For bridal fashion retailers and beauty pros on the platform, that discovery moment is critical. If couples search for designers or makeup artists inside ChatGPT instead of Google, for example, visibility changes.
So, in mid-December, The Knot began developing a dedicated ChatGPT app, which it launched in early February. The app allows users to access The Knot’s vendor marketplace directly within ChatGPT, surfacing imagery, reviews and local options inside the chat interface.
“We were able to leverage their technology and our technology to bring it to life in fairly short order,” Lewis said. The effort involved a cross-functional team across The Knot’s marketing, product and engineering departments working together with OpenAI.
Beyond the app and ad pilot, The Knot has rolled out AI tools on its own platform, including a search assistant and a feature called Make It Yours, introduced in September, which matches inspirational images to vendors who can recreate that look. “I think the area we excel in the most is pairing inspiration with action,” Lewis said.
Lewis sees the broader GEO search changes as comparable to an earlier digital inflection point. “This is changing the search and discovery landscape overall, in a way that we haven’t seen, probably since the early 2000s when Google started to meaningfully scale,” she said.
The mechanics are different this time. “The average AI SEO query is like 24 words versus just a few keywords,” said Aniket Deosthali, CEO of Envive AI and former head of generative AI at Walmart. That shift makes traditional keyword strategies less effective. “If your brand isn’t surfaced in that AI response, you’re out of the consideration set,” he said.
Further complicating matters, answer engines don’t prioritize the same sources. According to Deosthali, ChatGPT and Perplexity share roughly 12% overlap in the domains they surface. For brands, that means optimization is no longer one-size-fits-all. “You have to prioritize where consumer mindshare actually is.”
Still, The Knot’s Lewis cautioned against overreacting. “It’s very early days,” she said of the ad pilot. “We’re just happy to have a seat at the table.” Internally, the company is leaning on data without letting it dictate every move. “Data-informed, not data-led,” she said. “We need to have as much data as we can to help inform our strategy and direction, but we’re not going to blindly follow data.”
OpenAI has framed its ad test as a way to fund broader access while maintaining trust, writing that “ChatGPT’s answers remain independent and unbiased, conversations stay private, and people keep meaningful control over their experience.”
Whether conversational ads become a major performance channel remains to be seen. But as Lewis put it, “The traditional marketing funnel, as we know it, has been so wildly disrupted.” If discovery continues to shift to AI search, brands in fashion, beauty and beyond will have to rethink how they show up in that conversation.
