measured<\/a> by whether the ads help people get things done.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re moving from the attention economy to the intelligence economy, and what consumers really want is usefulness,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so that\u2019s what we\u2019re all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ads as an entr\u00e9e<\/p>\n
OpenAI also sees advertising not just as a revenue line but as a way to underwrite access to its product, especially for free users and those in lower-priced tiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to increase access for more people to better AI tools,\u201d Dugan said. \u201cAs we build our ads platforms, it\u2019s a way to subsidize those experiences and bring more information to more people. There\u2019s a direct tie between ads and the mission of our business.\u201d<\/p>\n
For all intents and purchases<\/p>\n
OpenAI now has more than 900 million weekly active users and around 20% of the questions people are asking have direct commercial intent, according to Dugan. But an even broader set of queries are upper funnel with commercial potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay, for instance, I\u2019m planning a trip to the Alps with my family, and I ask \u2018What\u2019s a good time of the year to go?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not yet showing commercial intent yet, but that could be predictive of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gotta have guardrails<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, to make ads inside a chat feel acceptable to users, OpenAI is drawing bright lines, including clear ones around where sponsored messages appear and what stays off-limits to advertisers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be very clear that we\u2019re never sharing conversational information with advertisers,\u201d Dugan said. \u201cIt\u2019s an important topic for our users that we maintain that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Creative workflows<\/p>\n
But what about the creative itself? We are in Cannes, after all, where it\u2019s all about the work.<\/p>\n
Well, the work is changing, said Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, because the scale of production is changing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gone around the world and talked to brands and they\u2019re not producing assets in the thousands \u2013\u00a0they\u2019re producing assets in the tens of thousands,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cThink about the languages, the different audiences, the different formats and the different platforms they have to publish on. It\u2019s just a massive amount of work to create, and I think that\u2019s where OpenAI and our models can play a huge role.\u201d<\/p>\n
No coding experience required<\/p>\n
The interesting part isn\u2019t just having more tools, though, Nelson added; it\u2019s about being able to build your own, even if you don\u2019t know how to write code.<\/p>\n
Using Codex, which is OpenAI\u2019s coding agent, a creative director can sketch out a workflow in natural language and pretty easily turn it into a working app, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t code \u2013\u00a0I actually don\u2019t code at all \u2013\u00a0but I know how to talk to these systems,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cSome of the best creative directors in your company can now become R&D leaders; they can actually start to design and think about production workflows, tools and systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Live to Palais another day<\/p>\n
But do creatives want to become R&D leaders? Someone should walk over the Palais where they\u2019re getting their Lions Awards and ask them.<\/p>\n
Nelson pushed back, however, on the notion that AI will squeeze agencies out of the picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where it gets very complementary,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to brands and I\u2019ve talked to their agencies, as well, and ultimately it goes back to the sheer quantity of assets that need to be produced. If I can [do that] in a way that becomes more effective and talk to people on a more personal level \u2013\u00a0I think that\u2019s what both brands and agencies want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big baby steps<\/p>\n
Yet for all its ambition, OpenAI is also at pains to stress that its ads business is still in its infancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still very early in this \u2013\u00a0today is 19 weeks since we launched this ads product<\/a>,\u201d Dugan said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a baby; for a while, you talk about how old your baby is in weeks.\u201d<\/p>\nBut things are moving fast.<\/p>\n
Since February, OpenAI has launched its ads pilot in the US; rolled out an ad manager in beta; added international markets, including the UK and Australia; released conversion tracking; struck partnerships with ad tech companies, agencies and brands; and went from selling ads only on CPM basis to also offering a cost-per-click option, which now accounts for the majority of spend on the platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are clearly in the advertising business now,\u201d Dresser said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI didn\u2019t make its Cannes Lions debut from a Croisette rooftop or in a branded beach club. Instead,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24,44130,10864,44885,155,157],"class_list":["post-82773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-ai","tag-cannes-lions-2026","tag-chatgpt-ads","tag-david-dugan","tag-featured","tag-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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