Here’s something worth sitting with for a moment.
Your competitors are running ads on ChatGPT. You can’t see them. You don’t know which prompts they’re bidding on, what creative they’re running, or how their presence compares to yours. And unlike Google Ads (where Auction Insights at least gives you a rear-view mirror), there’s currently no native way to get any of that picture on ChatGPT.
That’s the blind spot. And it’s bigger than most search teams realize.
OpenAI launched advertising inside AI-generated responses earlier this year. Brands moved fast, all in within weeks. The minimum spend dropped, the Ads Manager launched, and a genuinely new ad channel was born. With ChatGPT advertising expected to expand to U.K. markets soon, the window for early-mover advantage is closing faster than it looks.
We’ve been watching since day one. Here’s what we’ve found.
What does ChatGPT Ads actually look like right now?
We analyzed nearly 1 million query indexes across 20 industries and five markets (the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) between March 2026 and May 2026. The data tells a clear story.
It’s a U.S.-first channel. Everywhere else is still warming up.
In the U.S., ChatGPT served ads on 4.5% of queries. Across roughly 170,000 U.K. indexes in the same period? We found zero ads. The U.S. accounts for around 90% of all ChatGPT ad placements in our dataset. Canada and New Zealand are active. Australia’s at 1.6%. The U.K. hasn’t flipped yet, but it will.
For U.K. search teams, that’s a two-sided finding. The channel isn’t live here yet. But your U.S. competitors have had months to figure out which prompts convert, what creative works, and where the real opportunity sits. When U.K. advertising opens up, they won’t be starting from scratch. You might be.
There’s only one ad per response the majority of cases
In the U.S., ChatGPT averages just 1.06 ad items per ad-bearing answer. That means in the vast majority of responses, there’s a single sponsored slot. Not three. Not a carousel. One.
That changes the stakes completely. In Google Ads you can hold position two or three and still get clicks. On ChatGPT, you’re either in the answer or you’re not. Share of voice here is binary in a way paid search has never quite been before.
Some industries are blocked for now
Four categories returned zero ChatGPT ads across the entire dataset: Legal, Pharma, Banking, and Nonprofit. Healthcare was near-zero at 0.45%. This looks like deliberate OpenAI policy rather than lack of demand. These restrictions will evolve. When they do, the teams that are already watching will have a head start.
The hottest categories aren’t the ones you’d expect
Logistics tops the chart at 12.4% ad frequency, followed by Home & Garden at 12% and Beauty & Cosmetics at 10%. These are categories building serious ground on ChatGPT right now, well…
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