Four days ago, OpenAI confirmed it’s officially testing ads inside ChatGPT.
That single update explains why this topic has suddenly moved from speculation to a standing agenda item. Investor decks. Conference panels. Side conversations with CMOs that start with, “We’re not ready for it yet, but…” That hesitation is telling.
Most of the conversation has focused on tactics. Formats. Rollout timing. Whether this ends up looking more like search ads or native placements. That’s natural. It’s also familiar. We’ve seen this cycle every time a new interface starts to matter.
What feels different now is the role ChatGPT already plays. People aren’t discovering content there. They’re resolving questions. Making sense of options. Getting pointed in a direction and moving on. Ads don’t change that behavior. They inherit it.
That’s why I’ve been thinking less about “advertising in ChatGPT” and more about what happens when answers become the primary surface for influence. When being clear, credible, and easy to summarize matters more than being clever or ubiquitous.
You can see echoes of that shift everywhere right now. In how teams are rethinking attribution. In renewed attention on the upper funnel. In the way buyer momentum is starting to replace linear funnel logic.
This week’s stories all touch that same nerve. Not new tactics, but a new shape to how growth actually works.
Patrick Patterson
CEO at Level Agency
Tomorrow: AI visibility insider session (live)
We’re hosting a short insider session with leaders from Leveland Profoundon what it actually takes to show up inside AI-generated answers.
If you’ve ever had the feeling you’re doing “good SEO” and still getting ghosted by ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, this will make that gap visible fast.
We’ll cover how AI answers get built, why some brands get cited while others get skipped, and the handful of credibility and content signals that move the needle. Then we’ll stay for live Q&A.
Tomorrow, January 22 at 1:00 PM ET (30 minutes + 15 minutes Q&A) Save your seat
What's interesting this week
ChatGPT Ads Signal the Start of Answer-Level Monetization OpenAI moving toward ads inside ChatGPT isn’t about new inventory. It’s about monetizing the moment when someone is trying to make up their
mind. That’s a powerful position, and it changes how influence works. Brands won’t compete for clicks. They’ll compete for inclusion inside an answer. That puts pressure on clarity, credibility, and product truth in ways most teams aren’t prepared for yet. Read more
Why Account Progression Makes Attribution Less Relevant This is one of the cleanest reframes of attribution I’ve seen in a while. Instead of arguing over credit, it focuses on whether accounts are actually moving forward. That shift feels overdue. When buyers loop, pause, and re-engage, linear attribution becomes noise. Progression gives leadership a clearer picture of whether marketing is creating momentum or just activity. Read more
Upper Funnel Spend Is Back, but the Rules Have Changed The old upper-funnel debate usually stalled out at “brand vs. performance.” This piece does a better job asking what upper funnel actually does in a modern system. With AI compressing discovery and shortening decision cycles, awareness isn’t about reach alone. It’s about legitimacy. The brands that win here are the ones buyers already recognize when the real decision moment arrives. Read more
Buyer Momentum Beats Funnel Stages in B2B This article reinforces something many B2B teams feel but struggle to operationalize. Buyers don’t advance cleanly through stages. They build and lose momentum over time. Designing marketing systems that reinforce progress instead of forcing stage movement leads to more resilient growth. This mindset pairs well with progression-based measurement and modern attribution thinking. Read more
A Simple Framework for Better Martech Decisions Martech decisions tend to fail not because the tools are bad, but because teams evaluate them from one angle at a time. Applying the six thinking hats framework forces teams to separate optimism, risk, logic, and emotion. It’s a practical way to slow down reactive buying and make decisions that hold up six months later. Read more
Google Discover Is a Quiet Signal of Where Organic Is Heading Discover doesn’t reward optimization tricks. It rewards relevance, consistency, and sustained interest. That makes it a useful preview of how AI-driven discovery works more broadly. If your content can’t earn attention passively, it’s unlikely to surface when machines start deciding what’s worth recommending. Read more
Deep dive: AI
When ads move inside AI answers
Most conversations about ChatGPT ads focus on the mechanics. Formats, placements, rollout timelines. That’s understandable, but it skips the more important shift.
Ads inside ChatGPT aren’t just appearing in a new interface. They’re appearing at a different moment. This is the moment when someone has already framed the problem and is asking for direction. That context matters. An ad inside an answer carries more weight than an ad beside a list of options because the user isn’t exploring. They’re deciding.
Simon Willison’s analysis makes this clear. Once monetization enters an answer-driven system, the incentives change fast. The system isn’t optimized to show everything. It’s optimized to show what seems reasonable, helpful, and safe. Ads will work within this same logic.
For growth leaders, the implication is uncomfortable but useful. Visibility here depends less on creative tactics and more on whether your product and positioning survive summarization. If an AI can’t explain why you belong in one clean paragraph, you won’t be included.
This is search all over again, but with fewer slots and less forgiveness.
Why loop marketing fits the way buyers actually move now
Funnels assume progress is linear. Buyers prove every day that it isn’t.
HubSpot’s breakdown of loop marketing puts language around a shift many growth teams are already feeling. Buyers don’t “advance.” They build momentum, stall, pick things back up, and loop through the same touchpoints with more context each time. The job of marketing isn’t to force progression. It’s to make re-entry easier and each pass more informed.
That matters more now than it did even a year ago. AI tools compress discovery, surface answers faster, and shorten the distance between question and action. When someone re-engages, they’re often further along than your funnel model assumes. Loops acknowledge that reality. Funnels fight it.
The practical takeaway isn’t to redraw your diagrams. It’s to identify where momentum is created and where it leaks. Onboarding that reinforces value. Content that answers the next logical question. Signals that tell your systems when interest is rising again.
In a world where AI shapes discovery and ads move closer to decisions, growth comes from continuity, not conversion events. Loop marketing works because it’s built around how buyers actually behave, not how we wish they would.
This week’s tool is less about a single feature and more about a working system. Asana recently featured Level in a case study showing how AI is embedded into our creative production workflow, from intake to execution.
The stack combines Asana AI with tightly defined workflows to handle task breakdowns, creative handoffs, prioritization, and status clarity across teams. AI is used to reduce friction, not replace judgment. It helps translate briefs into executable tasks, keep work moving, and surface blockers before they stall momentum.
Why I recommend this approach: most teams don’t fail at creative because of bad ideas. They fail because good ideas get stuck between people, tools, and timelines. Embedding AI inside the operating system of work turns creativity into something repeatable instead of fragile.
This is what AI looks like when it’s applied to real production, not demos.
AI platforms are shaping how buyers discover and vet brands. But most marketers don’t know if their brand even shows up.
Level’s AI Visibility Scorecard shows how often your brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, how you’re described, and how that compares to your competitors.
You'll get:
A visibility score and share of voice vs top competitors
Sentiment analysis of how your brand is framed in AI answers
A tactical roadmap to improve your citations, content structure, and authority signals
Used by leading brands and fine-tuned across real buyer prompts, this scorecard is your opportunity to drive real visibility in the zero-click search environment.
