Future of Marketing Briefing: OpenAI is working with Skai to bring retail and commerce advertisers into ChatGPT

Like the Criteo deal before it, the idea is to give advertisers a route into ChatGPT inventory through infrastructure they already use. But where Criteo acts as a demand aggregator, bringing its own advertiser relationships and commerce data directly to OpenAI’s inventory, Skai is a management layer. And crucially, a different kind of buyer sits behind it. Search marketers running campaigns across Amazon, Walmart and Google through Skai may never go near a programmatic platform. For them, the integration adds ChatGPT to a workflow they’re already in every day alongside inventory they already understand. 

Skai declined to comment. 

“I think OpenAI is trying hard not to become just another inventory source within the programmatic ecosystem or a traditional ad platform,” said Liz DeAngelis, managing director of integrated media at Brainlabs. “Partnering with companies like Skai or Criteo instead positions them much more squarely in the retail and commerce space, while also unlocking valuable shopping and purchase data.”

That purchase data is what separates a platform worth testing from one worth committing to. And if it holds up, the pitch writes itself. Someone asking ChatGPT to compare two specific SUVs isn’t browsing so much as they’ve already narrowed it down. The query tells a marketer exactly where they are in the funnel. It’s a pay-for-performance moment, not necessarily a CPM one. 

“Skai already has the infrastructure, the retailer relationships and the advertiser workflows to plug into that model,” said Lauren Beerling, group director of performance media at Collective Measures. “Partnering with companies that already sit inside those ecosystems positions OpenAI inside the purchase funnel at the moment of highest intent.”

Travel tips, shopping comparisons, researching a new car — the questions people bring to it are ones that often end close to a purchase decision. The risk, as many observers have stressed, is what happens if those behaviours essentially turn into another virtual shop window. Right now part of what makes ChatGPT valuable to users is that it doesn’t feel like it’s being gamed by brands. The moment that changes — when the ads start to feel like they’re shaping the answers rather than sitting beneath them — is the moment the intent signal that makes the whole thing worth buying starts to erode. OpenAI knows this, which is probably another reason it keeps insisting on test budgets. It wants the performance advertisers. It just needs the product to be ready for them first. 

“The Trade Desk has made programmatic accessible to more companies, but ultimately platforms like Criteo and API partners like Skai make it more accessible to more types of ad buyers – including those that don’t live in pure-play programmatic platforms.,” said Anthony Costanzo, chief analytics officer at Mile Marker. “For one, search marketers, who may never buy programmatic display or video, can gain access through Criteo and Skai.  Also, these platforms have done a great job in recent years of sitting on top of existing inventory and making it more accessible to buyers and sellers.” 

That deals like this even exist says something about how OpenAI has departed from the standard platform playbook. Google, Meta and Amazon all built closed, proprietary ad systems. The data stays in-house, the buying happens through their own tools and third party vendors get access only on their terms.

OpenAI is doing something different, at least for now. Letting Criteo, Skai and Pacvue into their ecosystem while retaining control of delivery and the intent data that makes the inventory valuable. Whether that’s a permanent strategic choice or a temporary fix while it builds out its own infrastructure is the more interesting question. Remember: Walmart gave The Trade Desk exclusive access to its shopper data for four years, learned what it needed to learn and then decided not to re-up. OpenAI may be running the same play. 

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by the time this article was published.

Numbers to know

• 7%: Percentage by which Walmart shares fell, despite U.S. comparable sales rising 4.1% and global e-commerce sales jumping 26%
• 66%: Percentage increase in likelihood that Snapchat users feel excited about a brand when creators are involved
• 14: Total number of days until the FIFA World Cup
• $90,000: The average household income of X users

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