Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTPeter AdamsTue, June 23, 2026 at 11:13 AM GMT+2 6 min readThis story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter.CANNES, FRANCE — Cutting through the noise at Cannes Lions, a notoriously busy global gathering of advertisers, can be an uphill battle. OpenAI is looking to do so with an ad platform that’s just four months old, seizing on an event where artificial intelligence feels omnipresent and viewed as both an enabler of and threat to the creative ideas the show celebrates.The startup is making its official festival debut this week by pitching major brand marketers and agencies in attendance on the idea that their industry is shifting from an attention-based economy to an “intelligence economy” anchored around chatbots. In this world, where users conduct more in-depth queries, OpenAI says ChatGPT will provide a differentiated layer of insight than what’s available elsewhere in digital.“The big difference is, for our app, people come in with a job to be done,” said David Dugan, OpenAI’s head of global ads solutions, during a media briefing with reporters on Monday. “It’s super intentional. They give us information about a problem they’re trying to solve and it's a perfect context for a marketer to deliver a targeted ad solution to them.”ChatGPT ads, which entered testing in February, are positioned by OpenAI as playing an influential role in the decision layer of purchasing journeys — effectively the middle of the marketing funnel, when consumers research a topic more deeply and compare different products. Roughly 20% of queries in ChatGPT have a direct commercial intent, according to Dugan. Other platforms, including Google, are revamping their experience around AI conversations that can be more winding and complex than traditional searches, but also present opportunities for contextually relevant campaigns and commerce capabilities.ChatGPT’s nearly 1 billion users express other behaviors that could lay the groundwork for contextually relevant ads down the line. For example, a person beginning to research the right time of year for a family trip to the Swiss Alps isn’t showing direct commercial intent, but rather predictive possibilities that marketers might capitalize on, Dugan explained.“If an advertiser can get in front of that conversation and introduce themselves at the right moment, there's going to be value there,” said Dugan, who joined OpenAI from Meta in March. “That upper-funnel piece is going to be a little bit harder to measure. It’s just something that is new to the industry.”Terms and Privacy PolicyPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info