Advertising begins to enter conversational AI

Commerce media platform Criteo has become the first advertising technology partner to integrate with OpenAI’s advertising pilot inside ChatGPT. The partnership will enable brands to activate advertising within the conversational environment, initially rolling out to users on the Free and Go tiers in the United States.

The integration brings Criteo’s commerce media infrastructure, retail relationships, and transaction-level data into the ChatGPT ecosystem. For advertisers, this means campaigns can be delivered within conversations where users are actively researching products, comparing options, or seeking purchase advice — moments that typically signal high commercial intent.

Early signals suggest this could be a valuable environment for brands. According to aggregated data from Criteo retailers in the U.S., users arriving at websites from large language model platforms such as ChatGPT convert at around 1.5 times the rate of other referral channels, highlighting the strong intent often present in AI-driven discovery journeys.

For retailers and retail media networks, the implications are significant. Historically, retail media has been largely confined to retailer-owned environments such as onsite search results or display placements. AI assistants introduce a new discovery layer where retailer signals and transaction data could influence product recommendations long before a shopper lands on a product page.

For ecommerce marketers, the takeaway is that conversational AI is quickly evolving into another discovery surface alongside search engines, marketplaces, and social platforms.
If search captured intent and retail media captured transactions, conversational AI may is another point to further influence the decision-making moment itself, one where consumers explore options, ask follow-up questions, and refine their preferences in real time.

While the current pilot is limited in scale, it offers an early glimpse into how advertising may evolve within AI environments. For brands and agencies alike, the next phase of ecommerce marketing may not just be about appearing in search results or product listings, but about influencing the conversation that happens before the purchase decision is made.