ChatGPT ads appear on a quarter of commercial prompts
A study by SE Ranking of more than 50,000 commercial prompts across 20 niches found ads appeared on 25.94% of them, with 14.35% of those ads unrelated to the surrounding conversation, per Search Engine Land. Only 3.63% of advertisers whose ads ran were also cited as a source in the answer above them.
Why it matters: OpenAI's ad rollout is already running at meaningful scale, but the relevance and citation gaps SE Ranking found are a signal for how advertisers and cited brands should watch conversational ad placement evolve.
The record: ChatGPTGoogle AI Mode
Posted to the wire August 10, 2026.