Ten weeks ago, OpenAI started showing ads inside ChatGPT on a cost-per-thousand-impressions basis. It was clunky. It was expensive. And it was, by the company's own admission, a test.

Now the test is over. OpenAI has turned on cost-per-click advertising inside ChatGPT, with bids set between $3 and $5 per click, according to screenshots of the ads manager reviewed and verified by Digiday. That is Google Search territory. That is the pricing tier reserved for platforms that can prove intent.

Here is what happened in those ten weeks: CPMs cratered from $60 at launch to as low as $25. The minimum spend commitment dropped from $250,000 to $50,000. A self-serve ads manager quietly went live. And now CPC bidding gives performance marketers the pricing model they actually care about.

The speed is staggering. Uber took three years to hire its first head of measurement after launching ads. Netflix waited about a year. OpenAI is already posting the job listing. The company did not respond to Digiday's request for comment, which is its way of saying "we are moving too fast to talk to you."

Why CPC Changes Everything

CPM advertising is brand money. It is awareness spend. Big logos paying to be seen, not to convert. That is fine for launching an ad product, but it has a ceiling. Performance marketers account for the majority of online ad spend, and they refuse to pay for impressions. They pay for clicks. For conversions. For outcomes.

CPC unlocks that entire budget category. "As OpenAI looks to increase spending, this is going to help advertisers directly compare their results on OpenAI to other major advertising platforms," Nicole Greene, VP analyst at Gartner, told Digiday. Translation: ChatGPT ads are now legible to the people who control real budgets.

The question is what a ChatGPT click is worth. Meta CPCs run three to five times cheaper than Google Search, according to ad agency Adthena, because the intent is different. Social users browse. Search users hunt. Where does a ChatGPT user fall? Someone mid-conversation with an AI about, say, the best running shoes is arguably closer to Google intent than Instagram scrolling. If OpenAI can prove that, $3 to $5 per click starts to look cheap.

The Anthropic Split Gets Louder

This is where it gets interesting for the industry. Anthropic has publicly committed to never running ads. Dario Amodei has called advertising inside AI assistants a fundamental conflict of interest. OpenAI is now building an ads manager, hiring a marketing science lead, and pricing clicks at Google-tier rates.

Two companies. Two completely different bets on how AI makes money. OpenAI is building a media company that happens to have an AI. Anthropic is building an AI company that refuses to become a media company. Both are heading toward IPOs. Investors will have to pick a side.

What Happens Next

OpenAI's ad product went from enterprise-only CPM pilot to self-serve CPC platform in 10 weeks. At this pace, expect conversion-based pricing (cost-per-acquisition) by Q3, a tracking pixel for attribution within weeks (Shopifreaks reports one is already in development), and a full programmatic ad exchange before the IPO roadshow begins.

The deeper signal: OpenAI is building every revenue line it can before going public. Subscriptions, enterprise seats, API usage, and now performance advertising. The $3 to $5 CPC is not just a pricing decision. It is a statement that OpenAI believes ChatGPT users have purchase intent comparable to Google Search users. If they are right, this is a multi-billion-dollar business line. If they are wrong, they just invited direct comparison with the most sophisticated ad platform ever built.

Either way, the AI company that told the world it was building artificial general intelligence is now, functionally, in the advertising business. Welcome to the show.