On 16 September 2026 OpenAI introduced an ad format that differs clearly from anything you know from search advertising: Sponsored Agents. Instead of an ad that leads to your website, the user can talk to an AI representative of your business right inside ChatGPT after the click.
Since then I keep getting asked whether it can already be booked in Germany. The short answer is no. The longer answer is in this article: what OpenAI has officially documented, what of it applies to advertisers in Germany and Poland today, and how I read the situation. All facts come from the sources at the end, and my own assessment is labelled as such.
What Sponsored Agents are
The OpenAI Help Center describes Sponsored Agents as an ad format that lets people chat with an AI representative of a business in ChatGPT. The conversation is opened from an ad, and the user asks questions about products or services there.
In the announcement OpenAI describes the flow in more detail:
- A user sees an ad in ChatGPT that fits their conversation.
- They can choose to start a clearly labelled conversation with the advertising business's agent.
- There they explain what matters to them and ask follow-up questions.
- When they are ready, they follow a link to the business's website.
OpenAI gives an example from furniture retail: someone who sees a dining table in an ad may want to know whether it fits their space, how many people it seats and how to care for its finish. These are exactly the questions the agent is meant to answer before the user lands on the website.
Separate from the answer and from the user's own chat
For trust in ChatGPT one sentence in the announcement is central: the conversation with a Sponsored Agent is distinct from ChatGPT's independent answers and separate from the conversation the user originally started. OpenAI also writes that its ads principles remain unchanged.
That matches what OpenAI documents for the regular ad card: ads are labelled, visually separated from the answer and do not influence the answers. How the card itself is built and how the auction decides is summarised in my overview of ChatGPT Ads in Germany.
Where things stand in October 2026
| Point | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | limited alpha with selected advertisers | Help Center |
| Market | test with select advertisers in the US | announcement of 16 September |
| Early access | OpenAI is not accepting requests at the moment | Help Center |
| Germany and Poland | no date given | Help Center, announcement |
| Visibility | users may see Sponsored Agents even if the format is not available for your own campaigns | Help Center |
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There is also a form on openai.com where businesses can register their interest in "Sponsored Agents with HubSpot". According to OpenAI, access is limited and subject to review, so registering is not a commitment. The possible eligibility criteria listed there are interesting: creative automation, automatic bidding and a minimum daily ad spend for 28 days. According to the form, OpenAI only confirms the final criteria and the spend amount and currency before onboarding.
The Help Center and the form only seem to contradict each other. My reading: there is no early access waiting list you can work your way up. Filling in the form gets you considered for later tests, nothing more.
What else was announced on 16 September
Sponsored Agents were only one part of the announcement. For accounts in Germany and Poland the other updates matter more right now, because OpenAI did not announce them as a US-only test, even if not everything has reached Europe yet:
- Ads Manager plugin in ChatGPT: create, update and analyse campaigns through prompts. According to the plugin page, availability depends on the plugin, your plan and your workspace settings.
- AI suggestions in the Ads Manager: when you draft an ad, the Ads Manager suggests copy and imagery based on your landing page and campaign objective. You review and edit them before they go into the campaign.
- AI text customisation as an opt-in: if you enable it, it adapts your existing headlines and descriptions to the conversation context and automatically translates them into the user's preferred language.
- HubSpot: according to the Help Center the integration is available wherever ChatGPT Ads are available, from Marketing Hub Free upwards.
- Shopify: according to the Help Center the app is so far only available to Shopify customers in the US and will come "shortly" wherever ChatGPT Ads run.
OpenAI gives no explicit country information for the plugin and the AI tools. So I check in the account itself what is enabled for a German or Polish account before I put it into a plan. Automatic translation in particular is something I would not switch on unchecked: with ads in German or Polish the wording decides, and you remain responsible for the copy.
My assessment for advertisers in Germany and Poland
What follows is my assessment from working with auction channels, not a statement by OpenAI.
Don't wait for the new format. According to OpenAI, Sponsored Agents start after an ad. Anyone who wants to use agents later therefore needs a running account with the regular ad card anyway. You can book that in Germany and Poland today, with a minimum daily budget of €15 or 65 PLN according to the Help Center.
Read the criteria from the form as a direction. Automatic bidding and a stable budget over weeks are listed there as possible requirements. Whether the same applies to Europe is open. An account that already optimises towards conversions and measures them properly is better placed in any case than one that only buys clicks. How measurement works is covered in ChatGPT Ads tracking: set up pixel and Conversions API.
Write down your customers' questions. OpenAI has not documented how a Sponsored Agent is set up or where its knowledge comes from. Regardless of that, this work already pays off today: OpenAI takes your landing page into account in the auction, and good context hints come from real customer questions. What that looks like in practice is shown in context hints for ChatGPT Ads: 7 rules.
Expect nothing for regulated industries. For financial, health and legal services even regular ads are prohibited outside the US. OpenAI has not announced that a new format changes this. The ad policies as of 10 September 2026 do not mention Sponsored Agents. Which industries fit well is shown in the overview by industry.
No upfront investment for a format without documentation. Today I would not put budget into content or technology that would only serve a Sponsored Agent. As long as OpenAI does not describe setup, billing and availability, that would be guesswork.
What is still open
OpenAI has not yet published some points, and I deliberately do not fill them with assumptions here:
- how an agent is set up and which content it uses
- how the format is billed
- when and in which countries it becomes available beyond the test
As soon as OpenAI documents any of this, I will update this article.
What you can do now
If you want to know whether your offer may be advertised in ChatGPT at all under the current ad policies, the ChatGPT Ads check walks you through the key points in a few minutes. How the channel differs from Google Ads is covered in the comparison of ChatGPT Ads and Google Ads.
And if you would rather hand over the start: I set up ChatGPT Ads including tracking, usually within seven days of the order and account access, setup from €1,500, ongoing management from €1,000 per month. As soon as Sponsored Agents can be booked in Germany or Poland, I will check with you whether the format is worth it for you.
Sources
- OpenAI, "Reimagining advertising with AI" (16 September 2026): openai.com/index/reimagining-advertising-with-ai
- OpenAI Help Center, "Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT Ads": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001524
- OpenAI, "Register your interest in Sponsored Agents with HubSpot": openai.com/form/sponsored-agents-hubspot
- OpenAI, ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin: openai.com/business/plugins/chatgpt-ads-manager
- OpenAI Help Center, "Ads Manager Availability": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001245
- OpenAI Help Center, "Create Campaigns for ChatGPT Ads": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001210
- OpenAI Help Center, "Ads in ChatGPT: The Basics": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001207
- OpenAI Help Center, "Setting up ChatGPT Ads in HubSpot": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001522
- OpenAI Help Center, "Set up ChatGPT Ads for Shopify": help.openai.com/en/articles/20001523
- OpenAI, Ad policies (as of 10 September 2026): openai.com/policies/ad-policies
As of: October 2026
