From Adweek · Jessie Dowd · · 1m 30s
Retail media's AI land grab is here
Amazon sells ChatGPT ads, Walmart aims past retail media, and AI assistants start building your cart.
In brief
Amazon sells ChatGPT ads, Walmart aims past retail media, and AI assistants start building your cart. Retail media is spilling out of retailer websites into AI answer engines, connected TV, and store shelves, and the ad money is following. Originally reported by Adweek.
Amazon starts selling ChatGPT ads
Advertisers can now buy placements inside OpenAI's answer engine through Amazon's demand-side platform, with Amazon reps coaching bids and context hints. OpenAI still decides which ads actually run.
“Amazon is OpenAI's newest partner to sell ChatGPT ads.”
OpenAI is stacking ad partners
Criteo, Pacvue and StackAdapt already have similar deals. Amazon is the biggest name yet in a young ad business OpenAI is assembling partner by partner.
Walmart wants more than shelves
At Goldman Sachs' Communacopia conference, Walmart Connect's Ryan Mayward laid out self-service tools, APIs, CTV, social and off-site ads, pairing shopper data with Vizio's TV reach.
“Walmart Connect is positioning itself as something bigger than a traditional retail media network.”
Assistants build the cart now
Target-owned Shipt launched Ask Shipt, turning prompts and photos into ready-to-buy carts across 100-plus retail partners, and it runs inside ChatGPT and Claude too.
Instacart rents out its brain
Cart Assistant is a white-label tool retailers drop into their own apps, alongside consumer assistant Clementine. Instacart plans to sell ads inside Clementine by year end.
Screens, and better creative
Walgreens brings Looma digital screens to 1,200 stores by early 2027. Ipsos and Emarketer found video beats display by 47 points on brand linkage, so creative quality is starting to matter.
The key point
Retail media is spilling out of retailer websites into AI answer engines, connected TV, and store shelves, and the ad money is following.
