eMarketer sees US chatbot ad market at $10 billion by 2030, OpenAI targets 100 billion

This assessment is based on the latest data forecast by third-party research firm eMarketer on the US chatbot advertising market. In April 2026, OpenAI proposed targets during a roadshow: advertising revenue of $2.5 billion in 2026, rising to $100 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, eMarketer predicts that the entire US chatbot advertising market will be about $10 billion in 2030. Even if OpenAI captures the entire market, it would still fall 90 percent short of its $100 billion target.

Over the past two years, ChatGPT has accumulated hundreds of millions of users, and AI chat has become a new internet gateway. However, compared with traditional search systems, AI chat products still lag in user base, usage frequency, and supply of ad traffic. eMarketer's data covers not only ChatGPT but also major players such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Amazon's shopping assistant. This means that even if OpenAI becomes the biggest winner in the AI chat market, it is only competing in the niche segment of AI chat advertising, not the entire digital advertising market.

ChatGPT's advertising model faces inherent contradictions. Traditional internet advertising is built on two models: "intent advertising" and "attention advertising." ChatGPT users, however, primarily seek productivity assistance—such as writing emails, explaining code, and summarizing papers—lacking consumption signals. In addition, brand safety is a challenge: the probabilistic nature of generative AI output makes it difficult for advertisers to control the communication environment.

The advertising system itself constitutes another barrier. Google and Meta's advertising systems include complex infrastructure such as back-end management, precise targeting, real-time bidding, performance attribution, payment settlement, and a bidding market formed by millions of advertisers. OpenAI currently relies mainly on a small number of brand clients and partners, with limited ad inventory, making it difficult to form a mature bidding market. In terms of performance attribution, most actions within ChatGPT occur in a closed conversational environment, making it hard for advertisers to track subsequent user conversions, and lacking the return on investment to support sustained budgets.

OpenAI has begun to adjust its direction, moving from a "single advertising model" to a dual-engine approach of "advertising plus transactions." On the advertising side, it launched ChatGPT ad testing in the United States in January 2026, opened a self-service ad management platform to enterprises in May, and rolled out ads globally to free users in June. On the transaction side, OpenAI expanded its strategic partnership with Visa, embedding Visa's payment network into the platform so that AI agents can directly complete shopping and payments. It also developed an "agentic commerce protocol" with Stripe, issuing one-time payment tokens to allow AI agents to securely complete transactions on behalf of users. Domestic Chinese AI firms are exploring similar models: Qwen is tied to Taobao, Doubao connects to Douyin, and Yuanbao is integrated with JD. com. In July 2026, JD. com's AI Agent completed a mini-program ecosystem integration with Yuanbao.