What the OpenAI “Code Red” Means for Advertising

OpenAI just declared a “code red.” And the first thing to get pushed aside is advertising.

Sam Altman told employees that newer initiatives, including ads, will be delayed so the company can double down on improving ChatGPT.

Here are a few thoughts from a marketing and media perspective:

1️⃣ This is confirmation that ads are on OpenAI's roadmap.

OpenAI has never officially said it was going to launch advertising. Today's memo confirms that ads are on the way.

2️⃣ The platform power dynamic is shifting faster than many marketers realize.

For years, advertisers have built strategies around stable ecosystems—search, social, retail media.

In AI, competitive advantage is much more fluid. If model performance slips, everything built on top of it (including monetization) gets deprioritized. And that makes room for the stable ecosystems - Google, Meta, Amazon - to make headway.

3️⃣ Marketers need to watch what platforms do, not just what they say.

Sam Altman has been warming to ads, but he's still more negative on them than positive.

A pause on ads tells us where OpenAI thinks its real near-term leverage is: consumer usage, product quality and retention.

4️⃣ For advertisers, the takeaway isn’t “AI ads are delayed.”

The foundations are still being poured. Ads in AI media will still expand and grow next year. I’m paying close attention to OpenAI’s competitors that have already started experimenting with ads: Google, Amazon, Microsoft. And don’t sleep on Anthropic.