Advertising via ChatGPT, a popular AI-driven conversation platform, has raised expectations of precision-targeted advertisements given the nature of AI to understand and predict user intentions. However, a recent study conducted by Searchable, an AI visibility platform, suggests that a significant portion of these ads fail to hit the mark.
Searchable analyzed over 11,000 adverts presented within ChatGPT dialogues from July 4 to August 4, 2026, to evaluate the relevance of ads served in the context of user conversations. Their methodology involved matching each advertisement with the corresponding user query and categorizing them into one of three relevancy bands: unrelated, contextual, and direct matches.
The results found that a substantial 33% of these ads were classified as unrelated, bearing no connection to the user’s conversation topic. Only 27% of ads directly targeted the product or service being inquired about by the user, constituting a direct match. Meanwhile, the largest segment, 40%, was deemed a contextual match—these ads related to something mentioned earlier in the user’s conversation but not directly tied to their immediate inquiry.
Strikingly, the analysis revealed that a significant 68% of ads appeared in conversations where the user exhibited no intent to purchase, hire, or book anything. This suggests a high occurrence of ad placements where the likelihood of conversion is minimal. Moreover, examining ads on a per-conversation basis showed that 40% of chats with advertisements featured at least one ad that was irrelevant to the discussion, and in 28% of cases, every ad within the conversation was off-topic.
The effectiveness of ads also varied widely across different sectors. Marketing and B2B services, along with software and SaaS, faced the highest rates of irrelevancy at 47% and 45% respectively. In contrast, the most relevant ads were from data brokers and background checks (50% relevance), travel (43%), and automotive (42%). None of these sectors saw more than half of their ads directly match user inquiries, highlighting a pervasive issue of misalignment across industries.
Certain sectors did exhibit trends in their alignment; for instance, insurance ads were less frequently unrelated (23%) but seldom precisely matched user questions (11%). The majority fell into the contextual category, often related to a life event referenced earlier in the user interaction rather than the immediate question.
It's noteworthy that OpenAI, the operators of ChatGPT, had previously reported decreases in advertisement dismissals (a metric it uses as a proxy for relevance) since the platform's commercial introduction in February 2026. Denise Dresser, OpenAI's chief revenue officer, noted that the dismissal rates halved, suggesting improved user acceptance or relevance of the ads. However, Searchable’s findings from the examination conducted about half a year post-launch showed no significant decrease in the proportion of unrelated ads, which consistently hovered around a third despite increased ad volumes.
From a branding perspective, these findings indicate that placing an ad inside an AI assistant doesn't guarantee relevance or engagement. Ads that land in unrelated conversations are more likely to be ignored or skipped. In contrast, organic placements or recommendations within the AI's responses tend to drive higher conversion rates, suggesting that they align better with user needs compared to paid ads.
The implications for advertisers are clear: there is a crucial need to refine how AI platforms like ChatGPT interpret and match ads to live conversations. Achieving this could enhance user experience by reducing the frequency of irrelevant ads and potentially improving the efficiency of advertising spend. This study invites a reevaluation of current algorithms and targeting strategies deployed in AI-driven advertising platforms to better meet both advertiser and user expectations for meaningful and contextually appropriate ad placements.
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