OpenAI announced new ChatGPT Ads experiences on 16 September 2026 and connected the ad account to two systems many companies already run: HubSpot and Shopify. The Shopify app opened to US-based merchants on day one and goes international from 23 September, in markets where ChatGPT Ads are already available; the announcement does not list those markets. Testing makes sense if you sell on Shopify with a clean catalogue or handle leads in HubSpot, have someone to measure it, and the app shows up for you in the Shopify App Store after 23 September; waiting is the answer if your demand is Hungarian-only, you work in a regulated sector, or you have no conversion figure. Two questions need answering now: who connects the ad account to your systems, and when the first test budget moves.
What OpenAI shipped on 16 September
The announcement has five parts. HubSpot is named the first CRM partner and Shopify the first ecommerce partner. From the announcement date, companies managing customers in HubSpot can connect a ChatGPT Ads account, create ads, track performance and follow up on leads inside HubSpot. The ChatGPT Ads app in the Shopify App Store opened on day one to US-based merchants, and product data flows in from Shopify Catalog.
The second part is Sponsored Agents. A user who clicks an ad in ChatGPT can open a conversation, marked as sponsored, with an agent the advertiser runs, ask follow-up questions and then click through to the company's site. OpenAI states that this conversation is distinct from ChatGPT's own answers and separate from the user's original conversation. The format runs as a test with select advertisers in the United States.
The third part is the Ads Manager plugin: campaigns can be created, updated and analysed with natural-language prompts directly in ChatGPT. The fourth: an ad can also be put together from a few prompts in ChatGPT Work. The fifth is creative help, where the system suggests copy and imagery based on the landing page and the campaign objective; per the vendor, advertisers can review and edit the suggestions before adding them to a campaign. A separate opt-in feature adapts existing headlines and descriptions to the conversation context and automatically translates ad copy into the user's preferred language. Sign-up runs through ads.openai.com.
What to do in your own situation
The launch touches very different situations, so one recommendation does not fit. The six typical cases:
| Situation | What to do now | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify store with a clean catalogue and export or English-language sales | Name the owner and put the catalogue in order | Products are integrated through Shopify Catalog, so it follows that a catalogue error shows up in the ad |
| B2B lead handling that lives in HubSpot | Check in the HubSpot-side app whether the connection is offered to you, and settle first what customer data the ad account sees | Ad creation and lead follow-up run on CRM context |
| Demand only in Hungarian, serviced locally | Wait, and at most test with manually written Hungarian copy | No quality evidence is published for automatic translation of ad copy into Hungarian |
| Regulated sector or sensitive customer data | Wait until the review of processing terms is complete | The announcement says nothing about data protection roles or contract terms |
| Search and social campaigns without proper measurement | Measure your current cost per conversion per channel first | A new channel can only be judged against an existing baseline |
| You want a Sponsored Agent for your brand | Wait; the announcement gives no way to apply | The format runs as a test with select advertisers in the United States |
Source: OpenAI announcement, 16 September 2026. The rows describe situations and contain no performance data.
Who connects the ad account to your systems
Installing and connecting does not start at the media agency. The app is installed in the system where permissions live: from the Shopify App Store into the store, and in HubSpot by linking the ad account to the CRM. That follows from how app permissions work; the announcement prescribes no role.
So the first ChatGPT Ads question in your company is about access: who requests the installation, who approves it, and who owns the ad account afterwards. Because the app has to be installed in the store or the CRM, the permission stays inside the company even when an external agency runs the campaign.
What data the ad account sees
Two data sets appear in the announcement. Products are already integrated through Shopify Catalog, and HubSpot-side ad creation and lead follow-up are powered by HubSpot context. Before installing, two data paths therefore have to be clarified for what reaches the ad account: the product catalogue and the customer record. On the HubSpot side, read this out of the app's permission list: which objects the connection sees (contacts, companies, deals), which fields, read or write, and where lead feedback lands. Data protection roles, processing terms, storage location and consent are absent from the text, so those have to be established from your own contracts and the two platforms' documentation.
The catalogue carries a practical Hungarian angle. If the catalogue runs on gross forint prices and stock data, the ads show the same: a stale item appears stale in the ad too. For a Czech, Polish or Romanian store the same three questions come out differently: the language of the catalogue, the country the store is set to, and who owns the HubSpot instance, the local team or the regional headquarters. Where one HubSpot instance serves several country teams, the ad account connection and the lead feedback stay with whoever administers that instance, so the local campaign's permission is decided at headquarters; no quality evidence is published for automatic translation into those languages either. If you already maintain a product feed for search campaigns, the same catalogue hygiene pays off twice, while reporting now appears in two places and the marketing owner has to reconcile store numbers with ad-side numbers.
Sponsored Agents go further, because part of the brand conversation moves into a separate agent session marked as sponsored. Governing that resembles governing a website chatbot: you have to fix what the agent may say about price, stock, delivery times and warranty. If you already run an assistant tied to your CRM, the rules described for an AI sales assistant in the CRM apply here too, and the EU AI Act preparation guide gives a frame for the transparency obligations.
If you want a first read on whether a ChatGPT Ads test is worth it for you, given your measurement baseline and the data in scope, the AI use case evaluator gives one in a few minutes. AI use case evaluator
What your first ChatGPT Ads test has to beat
Price, minimum spend, auction mechanics, targeting and attribution documentation are all absent from the announcement, which also publishes no performance figures; no independent measurement is available either. Planning therefore starts from assumptions, and judging the campaign stays with your own analytics and CRM.
| Item | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly search and social spend | HUF 1 500 000 | assumption |
| Share allocated to the test | 10% | assumption |
| Test budget | HUF 150 000 | calculated |
| Conversions in the test period | 30 | assumption |
| Cost per conversion | HUF 5 000 | calculated |
| Current cost per conversion | HUF 8 000 | assumption |
| Threshold for a 20% improvement | HUF 6 400 | calculated |
OpenAI has published no price, minimum spend or auction rule; every row is either this example's own assumption or a figure derived from it, and has to be recomputed with your own data.
A cost per conversion of HUF 5 000 counts as a result only if it clearly beats your current number: against a current HUF 8 000 per conversion, HUF 6 400 is the threshold, so the example would pass it. Write the threshold down before the test starts, or the outcome can be explained away afterwards.
What the 23 September date settles
The announcement gives one future date: from 23 September the Shopify app is available in markets where ChatGPT Ads already run. Availability for Hungary therefore has to be checked in the Shopify App Store; the announcement does not list the markets. For the HubSpot integration the announcement gives no country restriction and no separate date, so the HubSpot-side app shows what can be connected.
OpenAI's news index dates the advertising post to the same day and the Agents API release to 10 September; the text claims no link between the two. The same index carries the company's 11 September post about more than one billion ChatGPT users. That is the vendor's own figure for the user base, and it says nothing about how many of those users see ads, or in which markets.
Who should start now
Starting now makes sense if you sell on Shopify with a clean catalogue, or handle leads in HubSpot, and you have a marketing owner who can measure a small campaign end to end. If your demand is entirely Hungarian-language and locally serviced, if you work in a regulated sector, or if you have no conversion figure for your current campaigns, waiting is the reasonable answer.
- Write down who administers each system and who approves installing the app.
- Review the product data in your catalogue, because the catalogue data goes into the ad.
- If the app does not show up for you in the Shopify App Store, note the date and start with the HubSpot-side connection if it is offered to you.
- Record your current cost per conversion per channel and plan a fixed four-week test window.
- Request the data processing terms and decide what customer data may reach the ad account.
- Before enabling automatic translation, run it on Hungarian copy and approve every variant by hand.
- Write down in advance the sample size at which you will read the test; the example above uses a fixed budget and 30 conversions.