OpenAI is overhauling how advertisers buy space in ChatGPT, replacing its Max Bid and Max CPC options with target-based bidding from Monday, November 9. Target CPA arrives for conversion campaigns and Target CPC for click campaigns, and the old options retire entirely on January 1, 2027. Advertisers were told by email this week, and OpenAI is urging them to start the switch now rather than wait for the deadline.
What changes on November 9
For conversion campaigns, Target CPA replaces Max Bid for new campaigns in Ads Manager. Advertisers set the average amount they want to pay for a conversion, such as a purchase or a lead, and OpenAI’s system adjusts bids and delivery toward that target. Existing campaigns keep serving as Max Bid campaigns, but advertisers can switch them to Target CPA.
For click campaigns, Target CPC replaces Max CPC. Where Max CPC capped individual bids, Target CPC lets the system bid above or below the target in each auction, aiming to deliver as many clicks as possible while working toward the desired average cost per click. Existing click campaigns keep serving as Max CPC campaigns, with the option to switch.
The old options retire in January
The change is not optional in the long run. Max Bid and Max CPC retire on January 1, 2027, and any existing conversion campaign still on Max Bid will move to Target CPA, while click campaigns still on Max CPC will move to Target CPC.
OpenAI is also renaming its autobid approach: Maximize results becomes intelligent bidding, with the system continuing to adjust bids and delivery automatically to get the most from each budget. The rename is cosmetic, but the message is not: bidding is now the system’s job, and the advertiser’s job is setting the target.
Search Engine Roundtable reported the contents of OpenAI’s email to advertisers on November 5. The email is the first detailed look at how ChatGPT Ads will be bought once the platform moves past its launch phase, and it gives advertisers two months to prepare for the forced switch.
What advertisers should do now
OpenAI’s advice is to start the transition now rather than in December. For conversion campaigns, advertisers should confirm that Pixel or the Conversions API is sending the selected event to the linked data source, and use Event Quality Score warnings to find signal gaps.
They should also review recent actual CPA or CPC figures to pick realistic targets, since restrictive targets or weak signals can cut delivery and leave budget unspent. A target set from real numbers beats one set from hope, and OpenAI warns that weak signals are the most common cause of poor delivery.
The change lands first on advertisers already buying in ChatGPT. OpenAI’s ads business is still young, and the email went to current advertisers, not the wider market. But the retirement date makes the audience clear: everyone buying ChatGPT inventory will be on target bidding within two months, whether they run conversion campaigns or click campaigns.
Our read
This is OpenAI borrowing the playbook Google and Meta wrote years ago. Target-based bidding hands the auction to the machine and asks the advertiser to manage the outcome instead of the bid, a trade that works when conversion data is clean and fails quietly when it is not.
The January 1 retirement date is the tell: OpenAI is not testing whether advertisers like this, it is standardising its ads platform before the format wars get serious. Advertisers who wait will be switched anyway, on OpenAI’s timetable rather than their own.
The timing is also deliberate. OpenAI launched wider ad formats and a multi-image beta in October, and the bidding overhaul now gives those formats a buying system built for performance advertisers. Formats first, machinery second: that is how a new ads business grows up.
Why It Matters
ChatGPT Ads is barely a year into its build-out, and its bidding system is still being shaped. Target CPA and Target CPC make the platform friendlier to performance advertisers who think in cost per outcome rather than cost per bid, which is the audience OpenAI needs to turn ChatGPT’s huge query volume into serious ad revenue.
The risk sits with smaller advertisers: those without clean conversion signals may find their delivery throttled by targets they cannot meet. For them, the next two months are the time to fix tracking, not to argue about the change.
Background
ChatGPT’s advertising push has accelerated through 2026. OpenAI widened ad formats and opened a multi-image beta in October, and research put ChatGPT Ads revenue far behind Google Search on a per-query basis. The formats were the visible part; the bidding system is the quiet part that decides what the formats are worth.
OpenAI’s own figures put ChatGPT’s search-like query volume at roughly a fifth of Google’s. The bidding change is the next step in that build-out: less about new ad formats, more about the machinery that decides who sees them, at what price, and how much each impression is worth.
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