Amazon Just Made a ChatGPT Move That Could Change Its AI Strategy

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN, Financials), the e-commerce and cloud computing company, is opening a door to ChatGPT that it had mostly kept closed.

Amazon will let select U.S. brands that use its advertising platform extend their campaigns into ChatGPT. That is what makes this deal interesting.

Amazon has spent years protecting its enormous online marketplace from outside AI platforms while building shopping tools of its own. But its advertisers increasingly want to reach consumers wherever they are spending time. ChatGPT now has 900 million weekly active users, according to OpenAI.

Amazon had already started buying ChatGPT ads itself. Between April and August, it became the platform's largest retail advertiser, according to Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC.

Now Amazon is bringing some of its advertising customers along.

For OpenAI, the timing matters. Its young advertising business recently crossed a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate, giving the company another way to monetize ChatGPT beyond subscriptions.

Amazon will manage advertiser campaigns, while OpenAI will decide how the ads are delivered. Sponsored text and images will appear beneath ChatGPT responses.

For Amazon investors, this is more than another place to sell ads. The next thing to watch is whether ChatGPT starts becoming a meaningful source of shopping traffic and whether Amazon eventually decides it is better to work with AI platforms than keep them outside its walls.