Adobe was one of the first companies to join OpenAI’s Ad Pilot Program when it launched in February, alongside Albertsons, Target and Williams-Sonoma, running ads for Acrobat Studio and Firefly, its AI-powered image generator.
Now, that access has narrowed, Doug Wyatt, Adobe’s senior director for Americas media, said in a LinkedIn post.
“ChatGPT is narrowing both the paid and organic discovery pathways for tools in categories it now competes in directly,” Wyatt said in the post. “Image and voice/audio are closed off. Video’s still open…for now.”
OpenAI announced an update to its image generation model, ChatGPT Images 2.5, this week, and introduced ChatGPT Live, a set of voice models, in July. The restriction extends beyond paid ads, as ChatGPT has also begun restricting outbound referral links for certain queries related to third-party image editors, Adgully reported Thursday (Sept. 10).
The Restriction Has Real Precedent but Unusual Timing
Alan Chapell, president of Chapell & Associates, a law and consulting firm that specializes in privacy, data protection, antitrust and regulatory strategy, said platforms typically don’t cut off advertising partners until those partners reach a certain scale, and that as OpenAI’s own features overlap with Adobe’s products, hosting ads for a direct competitor would naturally become harder to justify, according to The Information report.
“I didn’t think that was going to come to loggerheads until a year or two down the road,” Chapell said, per the report.
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Media companies commonly decline advertising from direct rivals. News organizations don’t typically run ads for competing outlets, and video streaming services routinely refuse ads from other similar platforms.
The restriction lands on an ad business that was already unusually concentrated. Active advertisers on ChatGPT grew from 2,585 to 3,770 in a single week in June, but the top five advertisers captured nearly 17% of all global impressions, and eight of the top 10 were B2B software companies rather than consumer retailers.
OpenAI disclosed in April that its advertising revenue is expected to reach $2.5 billion this year, $11 billion in 2027, $25 billion in 2028, $53 billion by 2029 and $100 billion by 2030.
A Platform That Competes With Its Own Advertisers
More than 1 billion people use ChatGPT monthly, and most don’t pay for a subscription, which is why OpenAI has leaned on advertising as a revenue source. As ChatGPT expands from a chatbot into images, voice, shopping and other services, more companies are likely to find themselves in Adobe’s exact position as a paying advertiser and a direct competitor at the same time.
That dynamic has drawn regulatory attention before in digital advertising more broadly. A federal judge ruled in April 2025 that Google’s advertising technology business constituted an illegal monopoly, finding Google’s conduct had deprived rivals of the ability to compete.
If OpenAI’s restriction expands to more categories as it launches new features, the company faces the similar tension of protecting its own products while needing the advertiser base that it is racing to grow toward its own ambitious targets.
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