Key Takeaways:
Advertising inventory inside ChatGPT is now on sale in Europe, with Danish ad-tech firm Adform named as one of the technology platform partners carrying the regional launch.
"The arrival of ChatGPT Ads in Europe opens an important new advertising environment for brands and agencies, and we're pleased to have been selected as a technology partner supporting the rollout," Stefan Sommer, Chief Growth Officer at Adform, said.
Adform, which has operated for more than 20 years and sells omnichannel buying software to brands, agencies and publishers, said early client adoption is building across the region. The company's pitch to advertisers is measurement rather than reach: campaigns bought through Adform can be tied back to the same reporting used for its open-web inventory, so a brand can see how a conversation inside ChatGPT contributes to conversions it already tracks elsewhere.
Two European advertisers confirmed they are testing the format. Petter Mååg, Digital Media & Online Sales Manager at Volkswagen, said testing ChatGPT Ads lets the automaker explore how its brand engages in an environment where consumers increasingly research and decide. Marian Hanke, Senior Online Marketing Manager at Vodafone, said running the format through Adform lets the telecom test performance while connecting results to broader campaign measurement.
OpenAI's disclosure that more than one billion people use ChatGPT weekly is the number that matters commercially. Advertisers have spent two decades buying attention on Google search results and Meta feeds, and a meaningful share of the research and comparison behaviour that once happened in a search box now happens inside a chat window. ChatGPT Ads puts inventory directly in front of that behaviour.
The rollout is not OpenAI's first move into advertising. The company has been building the business in the US, UK and Canada, and Europe is the expansion that matters most for revenue scale: the region accounts for roughly a fifth of global digital ad spending, and Google and Meta have historically taken the largest share of it. Adform's involvement gives OpenAI a partner with existing relationships among European agencies and a measurement layer those buyers already trust.
For Adform, the value is less about the fee on any single campaign than about being one of the small number of pipes through which a new channel is bought. The company competes with larger independent ad platforms and with the buying tools owned by Google and Amazon, and a partner slot on a channel that did not exist three years ago is a distribution advantage it can sell into every agency pitch.
The competitive question is how much budget actually moves. Search advertising is the closest analogue to a conversational ad unit, and Google's search business generated $175.1 billion in revenue in 2024, according to Alphabet's annual report, the bulk of it from queries with commercial intent. Meta reported $164.5 billion in 2024 advertising revenue, per its 10-K. Neither company has disclosed any measurable impact from ChatGPT Ads, and OpenAI has not published European revenue targets, pricing benchmarks or the number of advertisers live in the region — all not yet disclosed.
Adform did not disclose the commercial terms of the partnership, the number of European clients running ChatGPT Ads, or spending figures from the early tests. Volkswagen and Vodafone did not disclose campaign budgets or performance results.
The near-term read for investors is that AI-driven ad monetisation is moving from pilot to product in the world's second-largest ad region, which supports the case for ad-tech intermediaries that win platform partner status and adds a slow-building competitive claim on Google and Meta's European share. Alphabet and Meta both trade at premiums built on the durability of their ad franchises, and any evidence that conversational inventory is taking budget — rather than adding to it — would be the first thing to show up in their European quarterly numbers. For now the burden of proof sits with OpenAI, which has disclosed neither the size of the European business nor a timeline for when it will.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
