The ad inside ChatGPT stopped being a link and became another agent
On 16th Sep'26 OpenAI began testing Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT, an ad format where clicking the placement opens a conversation with the advertiser's own agent inside ChatGPT instead of sending the person to a website. Wayfair confirmed it is testing at limited scale, with guardrails on product accuracy, transparency and handoffs to customer service.
Angi announced the same day that it is in the pilot, so a clearly labelled Angi agent may appear in home services conversations and route homeowners into its service request flow. It follows OpenAI retiring Instant Checkout in March and shifting to retailer-operated apps instead.
What it actually means
The paid placement has stopped being a link out and become a conversation held on someone else's surface. What you buy is no longer attention but the right to answer the next question, which turns your product data into the advertising creative. That is a different discipline from writing copy, because the thing being judged is whether your agent knows when it is out of its depth.
The price is the visit, and the first-party behaviour data that used to arrive with it. Wayfair's stated guardrails are the useful signal, since an agent speaking for your brand inside ChatGPT makes product accuracy a media quality problem rather than a customer service one. Worth deciding deliberately which parts of discovery and qualification you are willing to run on a surface you cannot see into.
You are no longer buying a click. You are buying the right to answer the next question.
Source: Angi / GlobeNewswire · Thursday 17 September 2026