Hotels Have a New Ads Channel in ChatGPT
ChatGPT will soon add paid ads into its platform. Let’s step back and clarify this. While our team has written several times about AI readiness and the importance of being considered and cited by platforms like ChatGPT, this is a new development. Paid ads will appear inside of chats, allowing advertisers to position themselves alongside the AI-generated result.
What does this mean for your hotel?
How ChatGPT Plans to Incorporate Paid Advertising
In their official announcement, OpenAI specifies the context and placement of ads, at launch. During a chat, paid ads will appear, separately and clearly labeled, alongside ChatGPT’s answer. They stress, repeatedly, that ads will be relevant and independent. In other words, they must fit the context of the conversation, be useful to the user, and remain fully independent from ChatGPT’s answers.
Ads aren’t live just yet, and will not affect all users. OpenAI plans to start testing ads soon, and may be active by the time you read this article. They will not affect Pro or business accounts, appearing only on free plans and in Go, a low-cost subscription that just launched in the U.S.
How Should Hotels Approach Paid Ads in ChatGPT?
When ChatGPT ads go live, it’s tempting to jump in and try it for yourself. That’s a healthy impulse — testing and experimentation create opportunities — but we advise a deliberate entry.
The opportunity:
Hotel marketers can now gain increased visibility for niche travel inquiries and distinctive experiences. If they can bring out their best qualities, like amenities, nearby attractions, packages, and the types of travelers they serve well, they have an opportunity to grow bookings among very motivated searchers.
The limitations:
Advertisers do not yet understand costs, controls, and measurement capabilities for this platform. OpenAI promises that they will never sell data to advertisers, an important privacy protection, but one that may limit attribution. Will this channel allow testing to certain landing pages or broad keywords? Or will it behave like a GoogleAI-style black box that limits our ability to control the executions?
How to Prepare Today
People come to ChatGPT with open-ended questions, often without a destination in mind. They come with a problem to solve or a trip to plan. They describe what they want, how they want to feel, and what matters to them. Because ChatGPT ads promise context relevance, preparing this channel overlaps with generative engine optimization (GEO).
Here are some considerations.
Which trips do you win?
Strong candidates are usually easy to name. Romantic weekends where guests don’t need a car. Small celebrations or micro-weddings. Outdoor-focused stays with trail access. Culinary weekends tied to a chef, restaurant, or local food scene.
Once you choose those moments, narrow them further. Broad claims will not hold up in a conversational environment. “Luxury,” “boutique,” or “one-of-a-kind” won’t help a traveler decide. Specific experiences will. If you want to show up for spa weekends, you need a defined spa experience with specific inclusions. If you want to reach culinary travelers, you need to name what makes the experience distinctive and how guests participate in it. If you want to attract pet travelers, your policies and amenities must be explicit.
Set measurement expectations early. Early reporting may focus on basic signals like impressions and clicks rather than full booking attribution. Limit budgets, track carefully, and scale slowly to make sure that this investment adds value to the rest of your marketing.
Hotels should enter this channel expecting to learn.
Your Website Still Does the Heavy Lifting
Ads may introduce your hotel, but your website does the convincing. And, your website relevance will very likely be the trigger that the platform uses to show the ad in the first place.
Website pages should clearly spell out what’s available for both the AI engine and the traveler clicking an ad, answering practical questions quickly and clearly.
- Fees, parking, pet policies, and cancellation terms should be easy to find.
- Location claims should be concrete, with real distances and walk times.
- The page should match the intent that triggered the ad, not default to a generic homepage.
- Photos, inclusions, and package details should support the promise made in the ad.
This is high-intent traffic. Treat it that way.
Brand Fit Still Matters
OpenAI’s guardrails around sensitive topics help reduce risk, but hotels still need to think about context. You don’t want to appear everywhere. You want to appear where the question matches your positioning.
OpenAI has also suggested that ads in conversational interfaces may eventually allow users to ask follow-up questions to help make a purchase decision. If that happens, the most effective messaging will read less like ad copy and more like a helpful answer.
Action List: What Hotels Can Do Today
- Identify your top three trip intents.
Choose real scenarios and real reasons people choose you. - Choose one experience per intent that you can clearly prove.
Be specific or don’t lead with it. - Build or refine landing pages that match those intents.
Each page should support a direct booking decision.
- Prove your fit with clear details and policies.
Remove guesswork around fees, policies, distances, hours, and inclusions.
- Tighten your positioning.
If your headline could apply to dozens of hotels, rewrite it. - Decide what early success looks like.
Qualified traffic, package views, booking engine starts. - Plan to test deliberately once the channel opens.
Start small and scale with intention.
When ChatGPT ads arrive, the hotels that succeed will show up with the clearest experience, the strongest proof, and a website ready to convert motivated travelers. If you’re ready to build those foundations today, reach us. Our experience across GEO and paid media can position you for growth as this channel evolves.