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

A commerce media platform deal adds a route into ChatGPT inventory through infrastructure already used by advertisers. Skai functions as a management layer rather than a demand aggregator, and it connects search marketers running campaigns across Amazon, Walmart, and Google to ChatGPT within their daily workflows. This approach can keep ChatGPT from becoming just another programmatic inventory source or a traditional ad platform. The key differentiator is access to shopping and purchase data, which helps determine whether campaigns are worth scaling. Queries that compare specific products indicate funnel stage and can support pay-for-performance measurement rather than simple CPM buying.

"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""

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