Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Ads in ChatGPT. It’s finally happening…

OpenAI Lines Up Advertisers, Reveals Key Details Ahead of Ads Launch🔒
Source: The Information
January 20th, 2026

Summary: OpenAI is launching ChatGPT ads in early February. The company has lined up dozens of advertisers for a test run, asking each for “less than $1M in spending commitments over several weeks.”

Here are OpenAI’s Ad Principles:

OpenAI is charging based on ad views (CPM model), not clicks (CPC model) like Google and Amazon do for search ads. This mirrors how Meta prices social media ads. It's still not clear what the best model for chatbot ads will be. AdAge is reporting that OpenAI will charge $60 CPMs, more than streaming TV ad rates!

ChatGPT has about 900M weekly active users. Ads will show to US users on the free tier and the new $8/month tier, not on the $20/month or $200/month tiers. OpenAI doesn't have self-service ad buying yet—it's all manual sales for now, though they're working on building self-service capability. 

The ad effort is led by Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications. Simo previously ran Instacart and was an exec at Facebook. OpenAI previously told investors it expects to generate about $2B this year and nearly $11B next year from products for non-paying users, including ads and shopping. The company is trying to raise as much as $100B from investors, so building a strong ad business quickly would help their pitch.

Advertisers and agencies are intrigued by ChatGPT ads thanks to the huge user base and the personalized nature of chats, which could make ads more effective.

Opinion: Woowee! It’s finally happening! Ads in AI! I guess it’s “last resort” time for Sam.

Sorry, Sam. But for us advertising folk, ads in AI chat represent arguably the most powerful and potent “new” advertising channel for marketers since … search? This moment could represent the beginning of an entirely new era for advertising.

Unlike search, which captures one-dimensional intent in a singular moment, AI chat can capture multi-dimensional intent across multiple conversations, with context that builds and evolves over time through memory. It presents a completely different, and much richer relationship between user, platform, and advertiser. Which presents incredible opportunities for advertisers to do things that have never been done before.

Of course, they’ll have to get the model right. There are so many questions that will have to be answered: Is it brand or performance (we think it HAS to be performance), is it self-service or managed service (we think it HAS to be self-service), is it on-platform or off-platform ads, is it enterprise-focused or for the mid / long-tail, is there sight-sound-motion or text only, and on and on and on. Also, another important question: Will ChatGPT operate like the other big walled gardens, or perhaps a hedged garden? Will they build, buy, or rent ad tech? And the biggest question of all: Will they ever let advertisers influence actual answers? Right now they’re saying they won’t, but Sam also said ads were a last resort. So you never know. Advertisers influencing answers could be a massive revenue unlock for OpenAI but could also greatly erode user trust. Time will tell where ChatGPT lands on all of these questions. We’ll be watching closely.

In the near term, this news is going to have all sorts of immediate effects on the industry. Here are some we can think of right off the bat:

AI advertising will work. There’s no question about it. The question is whether OpenAI can responsibly scale advertising and make it “work” to the degree that Meta and Google have, while maintaining trust and continuing to grow their user base. What could go wrong?

Netflix posts narrow earnings beat, reports 325 million global subscribers - Netflix's 2025 ad revenue grew by 2.5x from 2024, to over $1.5B in 2025, and the streamer expects ad revenue to double again in 2026. In its latest earnings report, Netflix said overall Q4 revenue was up 18% to $12.05B, beating estimates, driven by membership growth and higher pricing. For the year, Netflix had $42.5B in total revenue, up 16% from 2024. Shares fell 4% in after-hours trading. The earnings come as Netflix changes its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and film studio assets to be all cash (still at $72B) and will pause share repurchases to fund the deal.

Xbox is preparing to bring ads to cloud gaming - Microsoft confirmed that ads are coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming. Several users saw pop-ups warning of "1 hour of ad-supported playtime per session" while launching games, which Microsoft said were shown in error but confirmed the broader plan is real. The move comes as Xbox Cloud Gaming usage nearly doubled in 2025 compared to the year before, and as rising console manufacturing costs, expensive PC components, and US trade tariffs make the hardware-first model increasingly challenging.

Meta lays off 1,500 people in metaverse division🔒- Meta cut roughly 10% of staff (about 1,500 people) from its Reality Labs division as it shifts investment away from the metaverse toward AI glasses and other wearables. Meta's Ray-Ban smartglasses equipped with AI have sold more than 2M pairs and the company is reportedly struggling to keep up with US demand, delaying their rollout to Europe. Meta announced last month that it was reallocating budget from metaverse initiatives, an area CEO Mark Zuckerberg once called the future of the company (and inspired their controversial rebrand to “Meta”). Meta has been ramping up AI spending, with capital expenditures hitting $72B last year, with more planned for this year, and it recently acquired Singapore-based AI startup Manus for more than $2B.

Maybe it’s time to rebrand the company again? How about “Llama”?

John Gentry, OpenX CEO and ad tech pioneer, dies after battle with cancer🔒- Gentry joined OpenX in 2012 after stints at Disney, Overture, Green Dot, and Spot Runner. He left his imprint on the industry and impacted countless people. RIP.

WPP Media snags SC Johnson’s North America account🔒- Omnicom Media previously held the account globally but will lose the North American business to WPP. The win follows WPP Media landing the Norwegian Cruise Line’s $102M US media account last month. 

CPG data seller SPINS moves into media with MikMak acquisition - SPINS has a formidable CPG dataset, while MikMak helps brands optimize their commerce media.

Ex-Pinterest marketer Andréa Mallard named Microsoft AI CMO🔒- Mallard left Pinterest a few weeks ago after seven years at the platform. Microsoft AI is the company’s AI research lab launched in 2024.

Pinterest adds new chief business and marketing officers - Amazon's Claudine Cheever will become Pinterest's CMO. Pinterest's new chief business officer is Lee Brown, who previously worked at DoorDash and Spotify.

Dentsu reportedly fails to attract bidders for international ops - Dentsu has spent nine months trying to offload its international assets. Apollo had reportedly entertained a deal, as did Bain Capital, but both seem unlikely to buy at this point. 

A win for open standards: Amazon’s Prebid adapter goes live - Publishers will be able to see how Amazon Ads demand compares to other demand sources in ad auctions.

TikTok's new ad formats cater to streaming and entertainment advertisers🔒- The Streaming Ads format show clips from multiple shows in the same unit. New Title Launch is a performance ad that promotes major releases with the goal of driving subscriptions or ticket sales. 

Paramount steps up its game with programmatic ads in premium live sports🔒- Paramount is launching guaranteed programmatic ad placements in live sports for the first time, starting with UFC on January 24th.

EDO ordered to pay $18.3M to iSpot for breach of contract🔒- iSpot claimed that EDO used its data while developing competing products and services. A jury found that EDO was liable for breach of contract but not trade secret violations. 

YouTube relaxes monetization guidelines for some controversial topics - YouTube will now allow videos about self-harm, abortion, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse to earn full ad revenue, as long as they're dramatized or discussed in a non-graphic manner. Topics like child abuse, child sex trafficking, and eating disorders remain off limits for full monetization, even if dramatized.

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