If you’ve been wondering whether ChatGPT advertising is ready for your media plan, the answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. On this episode of Inside the Stack, AdExchanger speaks with Mary Gabrielyan, Chief Strategy Officer at AI Digital, about what OpenAI’s move into advertising actually means for marketers.
CPC bidding, pixel tracking, conversion APIs and virtually no minimum spend have made the platform accessible. What’s missing, Gabrielyan says, is clear measurement, attribution and transparency. Without them, it’s hard to call this a meaningful media channel yet.
ChatGPT ads look far more like intent-driven search than a replacement for display, social, or CTV, she argues. Until marketers can understand how ChatGPT influences performance across channels, marketing mix models and offline outcomes, widespread adoption will remain measured rather than rushed. On a platform like Google, that kind of tracing is possible. “We don’t have that answer for ChatGPT ads yet,” she says.
That’s the trust problem AI Digital built its Open Garden approach to solve. It provides marketers with tools that sit above walled gardens and media platforms, giving them one unified view of performance. Gabrielyan’s pitch isn’t that marketers avoid ChatGPT or any other walled garden. It’s that they stop evaluating them in isolation.
Also on this episode: Why Gabrielyan thinks Google is best positioned to win AI advertising over time, how AI Digital is helping clients track their visibility inside LLM answers, and why, as AI automates more of the media workflow, she believes “some things are better human.”