The ground is shifting beneath our feet, isn’t it? Just when we all thought we were getting a handle on using ChatGPT to streamline content creation—churning out those initial drafts for blog posts, brainstorming endless headline variations, or helping with that tricky SEO outline—OpenAI announced its exploration of ads. It’s a huge moment, a significant pivot for the company, and it means we, as affiliates, need to sit up, pay attention, and probably brace ourselves for a wild ride.
Why is this happening, though? Well, for all the billions of dollars OpenAI has raised and the projected revenue they’re aiming for—some reports suggest they’re looking to hit over $3.4 billion in annualized revenue run rate as of late 2024, with a longer-term goal of $10 billion—running a cutting-edge AI platform is wildly, insanely expensive. They have to find ways to cover those soaring operational costs. Subscription fees for Plus users are great, but with millions of weekly users, many of whom use the free tier, tapping into that massive audience with an ad model is an almost inevitable move for diversification. It makes sense, even if it feels a little bit like the clean, new tool is now adopting the same revenue models it once seemed to compete against, much like the path other digital giants have taken.
The Dawn of ‘Agentic Commerce’: A Gut Check for the Old Model
This shift isn’t just about a banner ad suddenly appearing on your chat screen. It’s about something much more foundational: “agentic commerce.”
Think about your usual affiliate flow. It’s usually something like: Search → Visit your review/affiliate site → Click your link → Purchase. Our entire business model relies on that click-out.
But what happens when an AI like ChatGPT becomes a shopping agent?
- A user asks, “What’s the best budget DSLR camera for a beginner in 2025?”
- ChatGPT doesn’t just list specs; it provides a concise answer, a few direct product recommendations, and, crucially, the ability for the user to potentially complete the transaction right there in the chat window.
We know this is coming because OpenAI has already forged partnerships with major retailers and platforms like Walmart, Etsy, and PayPal to create an in-chat shopping experience. They are integrating “product feeds” and building a system that allows for immediate purchase.
The worry for affiliates is plain to see: if the AI becomes both the information source and the salesperson, the user would rarely click to leave the chat and land on your meticulously researched, 5,000-word review. The AI cuts out the middleman—and guess what? We are the middleman in that traditional sense. Some analysts are already warning that for affiliate publishers who rely heavily on SEO and content, this collapse of the purchasing chain could be a major blow to traditional traffic flows.
Where Does Our Value Go Now?
This isn’t a death sentence for affiliate marketing, but it certainly forces a rapid evolution. The central challenge is attribution. Our commission model is often built on the last click. When ChatGPT synthesizes information from dozens of sources—many of which are affiliate publishers accounting for a high percentage of the sources it cites when discussing major brand products—and then facilitates the sale internally, how do we get credited?
The affiliate link disappears. Our tracking is gone.
This pushes us to find new angles, and I think there are two main opportunities here.
Become AI-Worthy, Not Just Human-Readable
We need to stop thinking about writing for Google’s search results page and start thinking about optimizing for an AI engine. They’re calling this Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
The AI needs structured, concise, clean product data, not just long-form prose. It wants:
- Specs: Clear, easy-to-parse features.
- Concise Benefits: Short bullet points that an AI can “grab” and inject into a natural answer.
- Structured Comparisons: Think tables, not paragraphs, of pros and cons.
Your content needs to be so authoritative, so clean, and so easy for the AI to ingest that it becomes the only data point the bot trusts for a specific recommendation.
Differentiate with Expertise, Trust, and Niche Depth
While ChatGPT is excellent at general knowledge, it still struggles with trust, personal experience, and niche nuance. This is our saving grace.
In complex verticals—like specialized B2B software, advanced finance tools, or unique hobbies—people don’t just want a “buy now” link. They need detailed explanations, real-world case studies, and comparison points that only a true expert can provide.
Your deep-dive, long-form content about, say, the best software for fractional CMOs isn’t going away. Why? Because the person asking that question wants more than an AI-generated summary. They want to know you’ve actually used the tool. They need a trusted source. As the internet floods with shallow, AI-generated content, human-verified, expert-driven content is actually set to gain value. It creates a competitive moat.
Other Potential Ad Formats
It’s also likely that OpenAI will introduce other ad formats, especially in the free tier. They might include:
- Contextual Suggestion Ads: Product or service recommendations directly woven into an answer, maybe with a small “Sponsored” tag, which could feel like a very native placement.
- Search Ads: If ChatGPT expands its search function, traditional paid placements could appear there.
If brands can pay for prime placement inside a recommendation layer, will organic affiliate content get crowded out? That’s a huge risk. It creates a “pay-to-play” pressure that many of us are already used to from Google, but this time, the competition is happening inside the AI itself.
This potential shift may force us to focus more on direct relationships: maybe unique voucher codes become more reliable than traditional tracking links, because the code itself is the attribution marker, no matter how the sale is processed.
It’s Time to Act, Not Wait
The writing is on the wall. OpenAI needs to make money, and given their high operational costs, the move to integrate commerce and advertising is completely understandable. They need to hit that huge revenue target.
We can’t just stand by and wait for our traffic to slowly diminish.
First, audit your content. Can an AI easily parse your most valuable pages? If not, start restructuring. Second, double down on the one thing a chatbot can’t replicate: your personal, unique, and trustworthy voice of authority in your specific niche. That’s the part a human customer will always seek out, regardless of how seamless the AI checkout process becomes.
What are your thoughts on this whole agentic commerce situation? Are you already seeing less traffic from queries that used to convert well?
Drop a comment below and let’s talk about the best strategies for this new AI-driven reality. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for more real-time updates as this all unfolds!
Christmas is around the corner; here are a few affiliate programs with sky-high holiday commissions.
Sources
- www.theapma.co.uk/the-emergence-of-what-openai-is-calling-agentic-commerce-and-what-it-means-for-affiliate-marketing/
- www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/
- www.intuitionlabs.ai/articles/chatgpt-ads-economic-analysis
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