Amazon Ads announced on 10 September that advertisers can now buy ad placements inside ChatGPT through Amazon DSP, in a pilot with OpenAI that is limited to select US advertisers. It is a managed service — Amazon’s team sets up and runs the campaigns — and it does not touch Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display. If you are a private-label seller running Sponsored Ads in Seller Central, nothing in your account changed this week.

What changed

Amazon Ads published the announcement on its own newsroom on 10 September, confirming that select US advertisers are testing ChatGPT Ads as part of a pilot, with Delta Vacations named as one of the first brands in it.

The mechanics, as reported consistently by Search Engine Land, Marketing Dive and The Next Web (the last citing an Amazon spokesperson speaking to CNBC):

  • Bought through Amazon DSP, not the Sponsored Ads console. Advertisers deal with Amazon, not with OpenAI.
  • Managed service. Amazon sets up and optimises the campaigns; there is no self-serve buying at launch.
  • Priced per click or per thousand impressions.
  • Ads appear as text and image units beneath ChatGPT’s answers, labelled as sponsored.
  • OpenAI decides which ads are delivered and where. Amazon runs the buying; OpenAI’s system runs the placement.
  • US only at launch.

Search Engine Land and Marketing Dive both report that pilot advertisers receive aggregated performance data — impressions, clicks, cost per result, CPM and CPC. Amazon’s own announcement page does not describe the reporting.

What it means for a private-label seller

For most of you, directly: nothing yet. DSP is a different product from the Sponsored Ads you run, this is a managed pilot for a hand-picked group of US advertisers, and the first named participant is a travel company, not a brand selling on Amazon. Nobody reading this can switch it on.

The reason it is still worth ten minutes is where it points. Product research is moving into chat assistants — a shopper asks ChatGPT which vitamin C serum to buy before they ever type a search into Amazon. Until now that moment had no Amazon-sold ad in it. Amazon now has a commercial foothold there, and the pattern with Amazon ad products is that a DSP-only, managed pilot is where things start, not where they stay. That is an expectation, not an announcement — Amazon has said nothing about opening it to Sponsored Ads advertisers.

The part to be sceptical about is measurement. Every metric reported for the pilot is an impression, a click or a cost. None of them is a sale. When this inventory eventually reaches smaller advertisers, the first question to ask is whether a ChatGPT click can be tied to an Amazon order at all — and if it can, remember that an attributed sale is not the same as an incremental one. A shopper who asked ChatGPT about your brand by name was probably going to find you anyway.

There is also a quieter trade-off already in your account. Amazon has been extending Sponsored Products into placements off Amazon — creator content, for example, where the off-Amazon setting is on by default. Each new surface is a place your budget can go before you have decided it should. ChatGPT is not one of those surfaces for Sponsored Products today; watch whether that changes.

What to do about it

  • Nothing in your Sponsored Ads account. No setting changed, and no campaign of yours can serve in ChatGPT today.
  • Don’t pay anyone for “ChatGPT ads access”. At launch it is an invite-only managed pilot run by Amazon’s own team. An agency or tool offering to get you in is selling something that doesn’t exist yet.
  • If you already run DSP through an Amazon account team, it is reasonable to ask whether you’re eligible for the pilot — and to ask how conversions would be measured before you commit budget.
  • Check how you appear in ChatGPT’s organic answers. Ask it the questions your customers ask about your category. Paid units sit beneath those answers; the organic answer is the part you can influence now, and it costs nothing.

Sources

The pilot itself is confirmed on Amazon’s own page. The buying mechanics — DSP, managed service, CPC or CPM pricing, placement beneath answers — are reported consistently by Search Engine Land, Marketing Dive and The Next Web; the managed-service detail traces to an Amazon spokesperson.