Lionel Messi has a new chess opening, and he says OpenAI's ChatGPT came up with it.
The Argentinian superstar shared a chess-themed ChatGPT ad with his 517 million Instagram followers on Wednesday.
Messi is the second-most followed person on the platform, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, and the video collected more than a million likes and 13,000 comments within a few hours.
In the clip, Messi asks the chatbot for chess instructions one move at a time.
He says in Spanish, "Chat, you know my style. Show me a good chess opening, step by step." By the end, he is ready to try another opening.
"I asked ChatGPT to teach me a chess opening that matched my style. It suggested Goat Horns," his caption read.
Many have dubbed Messi the "greatest of all time," giving meaning behind the Goat Horns move.
And while it's not an official chess opening, an introduction to more than 500 million people might make it an actual chess thing.
For a company selling artificial intelligence, the post also shows the chatbot handling a request viewers can picture making themselves.
This fits OpenAI’s brand strategy of showing ChatGPT at work in everyday tasks.
Chess Keeps Finding Messi
The timing of the ad is no coincidence.
Two weeks ago, OpenAI released its Intelligent UI, which gives ChatGPT more visual and interactive capabilities.
A lesson that walks through a board one move at a time suits that kind of feature.
Messi has worked with OpenAI before, too.
Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, he used ChatGPT to imagine his hair in Argentina’s blue-and-white colors and encouraged supporters to try the image tool themselves.
Messi has long been a coveted star for many big brands looking to boost reputation and awareness.
In November 2022, he appeared alongside Ronaldo in a Louis Vuitton campaign photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
Fans soon matched the position to a 2017 game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura at Norway Chess.
Outside advertising, Messi is also an executive producer on "Messi and the Giants."
It's the new animated series Disney+ plans to premiere in summer 2027 after a teaser played at San Diego Comic-Con Málaga.
Between the series and the OpenAI posts, his team is keeping his name in front of both families and adult football fans.
Personalization as the Product Demo
The line "you know my style" alone shows how AI quickly adapts to the person asking.
This is what makes Messi’s prompt the most useful part of this campaign for marketers.
And ChatGPT has the reach to make that kind of demonstration worth running.
Search Engine Land’s ChatGPT stats guide reportsmore than 900 million weekly active users as of February 2026.
The competition is closing in, though.
According to Wisernotify, the ChatGPT app passed 1 billion monthly active users in June 2026, while Google’s Gemini app reached 900 million monthly active users in May.
A product in that position needs clear reasons for people to open it, and a lesson from Messi supplies one in a single clip.
Here’s what marketers can learn:
- Show the product answering a personal request: Messi asks for an opening that suits his style, which gives viewers a reason to picture their own version of the prompt.
- Give the result a name people can repeat: “Goat Horns” works as a caption, a comment, and a conversation starter all at once.
- Pick a visual theme the audience already recognizes: Chess appeared in multiple posts relating to Messi, so viewers need no explanation of the setup.
Overall, the larger opportunity for marketers is a repeatable prompt.
When a familiar face asks the product a simple question, each new post can change the question and keep the format, which gives audiences a pattern they can follow.
Our Take: Is a Messi x Chess Ad the Perfect Setup for ChatGPT?
Chess.com has documented that AI models give poor chess advice, and the Black moves in Goat Horns are the kind of line a strong player would wince at.
However, we also think it doesn't matter much here.
Nobody leaves a Messi post remembering 1.e4 a6.
They remember a funny name and the way he says "Chat" almost like he's calling a friend over to the table.
To us, it's the argument over the opening that keeps the name alive.
But more importantly, it's the fact that you can use the chatbot for any activity, much like chess, that would get people to open their app and follow in Messi's footsteps.
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