OpenAI is officially expanding ChatGPT ads and making them far more accessible to brands and marketers. Advertisers can now buy campaigns through agency partners or directly through a new self-serve Ads Manager, with CPC bidding and expanded measurement tools rolling out as part of the platform.

What stands out to me is not just the ad product itself, but what this signals for the future of discovery and buying behavior. We’re quickly moving into a world where conversations become the new search engine, and AI becomes the layer influencing purchasing decisions in real time.

For brands, this changes the game. Visibility is no longer just about SEO or paid search. It’s about whether AI systems can understand your product, trust your positioning, and confidently recommend you inside conversational experiences.

This shift is happening much faster than most companies realize.

Read the full announcement here: OpenAI announcement.

My favorite brand strategy of the week and why it worked.

This week: Wispr Flow and the way founder Tanay Kothari approached their India launch.

Instead of leading with a polished campaign or overproduced brand rollout, Tanay made the story personal. He went back to India and tested Wispr Flow in real environments: inside autos, gyms blasting Punjabi music, and busy dhabas. The product story became deeply tied to his own experience growing up in Delhi and building for people who speak the way he does. 

I personally like this approach because it feels relatable and human.

The strategy is unconventional, but that’s exactly why it works. It doesn’t feel manufactured for engagement. It feels like the founder's conviction is meeting real customer behavior.

A few things stood out to me:
• The founder story and product story are fully aligned
• They leaned into cultural nuance instead of generic “global expansion” messaging
• The content felt documented, not over-marketed
• It created trust because people could see themselves in the product

In a world full of polished AI messaging, this felt refreshingly grounded.

Sometimes the best growth strategy is simply making people feel understood.

Check out their India release here.

Here’s what I’m seeing in 2026: AI is no longer an experiment in marketing, it’s the new infrastructure. According to a new Canva study, 97% of marketing leaders now use AI in their daily creative work, and 99% plan to increase their AI investment. That kind of near-universal adoption signals something important: how to use it without losing your audience.

Yeah, the productivity gains are real. I mean, 94% of marketers save four hours a week through AI, and 68% say it increased marketing-influenced business decisions. But speed and volume aren't winning consumer hearts. Seven in ten consumers say AI-generated ads feel like something is missing, even as most say they don't mind AI if the result is helpful or relevant. Meanwhile, mentions of "AI slop" in the media have increased ninefold. Maybe tenfold. 

What consumers actually want though is transparency. 78% say they'd rather see ads made by people, even if AI could produce better ones, and 87% believe the best advertising still requires a human touch.

The takeaway for me is that human judgment isn't a nice-to-have anymore, it's the differentiator. Three-quarters of marketing leaders expect creative roles to grow over the next five years, with imagination, direction, and empathy becoming more central, not less. AI handles the execution, sure. But trust is still earned by people.

You want readers to notice your content, but these days you also want AI to notice. See, as more people turn to AI to get recommendations, the rules of visibility are changing fast. SEO used to be about ranking. But according to Semrush, it's about being a source AI trusts enough to cite.

The good news: you don't need to overhaul your entire content strategy. A few focused shifts can make a real difference.

First, structure matters more than ever. AI favors pages with clear headers, lists, and direct answers up front. If your best content is buried in dense paragraphs, it's likely being passed over.

Second, consistency is your credibility. AI learns through consensus, meaning the qualities you want to be known for need to show up repeatedly across your content. If affordability, expertise, or sustainability are part of your brand story, say so clearly and often.

Third, go where the gaps are. Look at where competitors are getting cited and ask why you're not there. Comparison content, budget breakdowns, and clear recommendations are the kinds of pages AI pulls from when answering real buyer questions.

The shift happening right now isn't just technical. It's a reminder that clarity and consistency have always been the foundation of good marketing. AI is just making that more visible, and more consequential, than before.

I attended The Social Party at EMPIRE Studios yesterday, and it reminded me how different “good events” feel when they’re intentionally designed, with 75+ social and creative leaders from companies like Cisco, Adobe, Lovable, Waymo, Figma, Zelle, OpenAI, and many more.

Hosted by Grace Tully (PayPal) and Jo Pham (WhatsApp), the evening wasn’t structured like a typical event. No long talks. No heavy pitch energy. No forced networking moments.

What stood out most was how quickly real conversations formed once the structure got out of the way. I had conversations about content creation, real behind-the-scenes struggles, how these amazing content creators overcome them to deliver the best content for your audience, and the best tools marketers use today (and even some tips on their favorites!).

It’s a reminder that good connections don’t need much forcing, just the right room and the right people.

We’re so grateful to be able to support communities like this, and this is special given that these are for folks based in our backyard here in SF.

If you are planning your next activation, we are always open to collab!

Next episode of Ascend: Stories of Scale is on the way!

This one goes a bit deeper into what scaling really looks like behind the scenes, the stuff you don’t usually see in case studies or headlines.

It’s definitely worth keeping an eye out for!

Every week feels like a mix of small signals that only make sense once you put them together. This one was one of those weeks. Thanks for reading along! 😊