ADVERTISEMENTS IN CHATGPT APPEAR IN THREE-QUARTERS OF COMMERCIAL QUERIES

According to an analysis by Marketing Miner, adverts appeared in 74.7 per cent of ChatGPT’s 10,800 responses to commercially oriented queries. In nearly nine out of ten cases where the chatbot itself recommended a specific brand, the advertiser differed from the organic recommendation. The prevalence of adverts increased with the specificity of the purchase intention, as shown by an analysis carried out at the end of September.

Adverts appear in the Czech ChatGPT for 74.7 per cent of consumer and commercial queries. In 89 per cent of cases, the advertised company differs from the brands recommended by the chatbot in its response. This is according to an analysis by the Czech tool Marketing Miner, which examined 10,800 ChatGPT responses.

The study took place from 25 to 27 September 2026 and included 3,600 different queries across ten sectors, such as electronics, housing, travel, cars and insurance. Each query was entered three times in separate conversations. The research focused on how often adverts were displayed and how well they matched the content of the conversation. However, it did not track the number of clicks or orders, so it is not possible to draw conclusions about the performance of the advertising format from the findings.

According to Marketing Miner, the likelihood of an advert being displayed increases as the user gets closer to making a purchase decision. For general enquiries about types of mattresses, an advert appeared in 67.5 per cent of cases, when comparing foam and spring mattresses in 75.3 per cent of cases, and for queries about a cheap foam mattress costing up to 10,000 crowns in 81.4 per cent of cases.

Advertisements often appear outside the chatbot’s recommendations

The most striking finding of the analysis is the difference between ChatGPT’s organic recommendations and the paid advertising displayed beneath its responses. In 89 per cent of cases where the chatbot recommended a specific brand in its text, the measurements showed that an advert for a different company was displayed.

In one example, when selecting a laptop, ChatGPT recommended the retailers Planeo, Alza, Mironet and Datart, whilst the advertising space was secured by Počítárna. According to the authors of the research, the advert therefore does not represent an endorsement of the model’s own recommendation, but a separate commercial offer.

“To maximise their business impact, companies should use appropriate tools to improve their visibility directly within the AI’s responses, so that ChatGPT recommends them itself,” said Vojtěch Toulec, co-owner of Marketing Miner.

The research also showed that it is not only big brands that are securing advertising space. Among the Czech advertisers most frequently identified were, for example , Alza, AAA Auto, T-Mobile, O2 and Invia. However, according to Marketing Miner’s estimates, almost 48 per cent of the recorded adverts belonged to companies whose websites receive fewer than 10,000 visitors a month from standard search engines.

Targeting is currently hampered by context

According to the analysis, the advertising system in ChatGPT is sometimes able to utilise the broader context of a conversation, but at other times it fails to accurately recognise the user’s intent. For example, during a conversation about holidays, an advert for cheap flights appeared following a subsequent enquiry about the weather in Málaga. Conversely, when asked where to buy a washing machine more cheaply than at Datart, an advert appeared from a company specialising in the collection of old appliances.

According to market representatives, experience from the first campaigns does notyet provide grounds for considering advertising in ChatGPT to be an established performance channel. Lucie Thiemlová, Chief Operating Officer at Srovnáme.cz, recommends that companies test it gradually and bear in mind that a click-through could cost as much as tens of crowns. Markéta Kabátová, director of the performance agency uLab, compares the quality of the traffic generated more to advertising on Facebook and Instagram than to search advertising.

Marketing Miner also noted restrictions on advertising relating to sensitive topics. In supplementary tests, adverts stopped appearing following any mention of personal health issues, financial hardship or crisis situations. These findings are based on separate qualitative tests, not on the main statistical sample.

Advertisements on ChatGPT were launched in the Czech Republic on 24 August 2026, with registration for Czech advertisers beginning on 31 August. They are displayed to logged-in users of the Free and Go versions, but not to users of the Plus, Pro and Business plans. OpenAI states that the adverts do not influence the chatbot’s responses and that advertisers do not have access to the content of conversations.

Source: mediaguru.cz