OpenAI Trials Product Carousel Ads on ChatGPT

Verified screenshots show a new advertising format on ChatGPT: a product carousel that lets multiple products appear within a single ad spot. The carousel appears at the bottom of a user's conversation, the same location where typical single-product ads are shown.

The development comes roughly three months after OpenAI made it easier for e-commerce companies to advertise on the platform. At that time, OpenAI introduced automation that lets retailers bulk-create product feed campaigns from their catalogues, eliminating the need to build each ad individually.

That setup was designed to stack ads side-by-side, paving the way for carousel placements. For the past five months, ChatGPT has largely relied on a simpler ad format featuring a headline, short description, image, and link, with ads clearly labeled at the bottom of conversations.

The new product carousel works similarly to Google's Shopping feed. Instead of requiring brands to craft individual ad units, OpenAI can pull product information directly from retailers' feeds and determine which products to display together in a more shoppable format.

Until now, a ChatGPT ad meant one advertiser and one product. The carousel breaks that mold, opening up more options for product discovery within chat sessions.