OpenAI ads boss David Dugan on third-party measurement: ‘it’s a natural step’

“As we evolve, of course, we’ll think about what are the most trusted third-party partners that we would look to collaborate with and integrate with,” he said. “So I don’t have any names to announce on that, but I think it’s a natural step that working with trusted industry partners is often an expectation of advertisers or agencies or partners. We respect that.”

That candor points to sooner rather than later, which wouldn’t be a surprise. OpenAI’s ads business has come together faster than most. In just four months, it has launched in seven markets (so far), hired ad execs, struck commercial partnerships, built measurement tools and launched an ads manager. It took the likes of Google, Meta and the rest months — if not years — to do the same. 

“So as we think about the roadmap, we’ll certainly think about what are expectations from advertisers, and then how can we build that,” said Dugan. “I do think this is such a new experience [for users] that we will have to think about how we evolve some of the metrics. How does the industry have to evolve and perhaps think differently from what other channels like search looked like.”

It’s an important point because it gets to one of the more fundamental challenges for OpenAI: this isn’t search so the old playbook for measuring performance doesn’t map cleanly onto it. 

Dugan expanded on the point: “How does the industry have to evolve and perhaps think differently from what other channels like search looked like. I think that’s going to be a really interesting collaboration between us and some of these partners, because the playbook will have to be different.”

A lot is riding on that playbook. If and when OpenAI goes public — it has already confidentially filed an S-1 form to the U.S. SEC — it will need to prove to investors it can keep advertisers coming back, and turn a profit quarter after quarter, not just that it got an ad pilot off the ground. But that only happens if they trust the ads work as intended. Third-party measurement is what makes that trust legitimate. 

“OpenAI has refused to share chat contents with advertisers (it cannot risk eroding user trust), making external verification a requirement to prove effectiveness and build the necessary advertiser trust to transition into being a core part of media budgets,” said Claire Holubowskyj, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis.

Still, it would be wrong to think third-party measurement is a silver bullet to OpenAI’s challenges to building an ads business. Yes, it buys credibility and a check against the platform marking its own homework. But it doesn’t answer the harder question: what’s the right way to measure influence inside a conversation in the first place. That’s still being invented.

“It proves performance but can’t deliver it: OpenAI is still developing the model for chatbot-native advertising and is yet to land on a truly differentiated format,” Holubowskyj said.