OpenAI’s ChatGPT Growth Team Plans Ad Infrastructure for Scalable Paid Marketing

While most brands rely on ad tools, OpenAI is building its own from scratch.

This effort is now taking shape as the company lays the foundation to manage its ad campaigns internally.

A new job posting reveals that OpenAI is hiring a Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer.

The role focuses on building internal tools to run campaigns, track results in real time, and improve ad spend efficiency across platforms.

The engineer would join the newly formed ChatGPT Growth team and help build the systems that handle marketing decisions from end to end.

The job listing lays out what OpenAI expects from the new hire, emphasizing the need to build a strong foundation for its internal marketing tech.

“As we are in the early stages of building this platform, we will rely on you to design and implement foundational MarTech infrastructure that make our marketing investments more effective, measurable, and automated.”

While OpenAI has long been associated with research, this signals a clear focus on marketing and growth.

Earlier this year, OpenAI named PHD, part of Omnicom Media Group, as its global media agency of record.

This relationship included OpenAI’s first Super Bowl campaign and a student-focused initiative.

The new role suggests OpenAI now wants to bring more of that work in-house.

From Experiments to In-House Execution

OpenAI hasn’t started running ads inside ChatGPT yet, but the infrastructure it’s now building could eventually support that.

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications and former Instacart CEO, is reportedly meeting with candidates to lead this effort.

At Instacart, Simo helped launch the company’s ad platform, which now accounts for a major share of revenue.

OpenAI’s growth is also part of the story. ChatGPT recently reached 700 million weekly active users, a fourfold increase from the year before.

The company is on track to bring in $12.7 billion in 2025, up sharply from previous years.

This kind of scale makes internal tools necessary.

Jacob Bourne, an analyst at eMarketer, shared with Adweek, it's a natural next step for a company trying to manage growth on its own terms.

He said building in-house gives OpenAI more control over spend and platform strategy, especially as it scales across environments like Google and Meta.

“Outsourcing would mean less control and more risk given its sensitive market position,” Bourne said.

He added that while the move may feel surprising coming from a company that began as a nonprofit research lab, it reflects OpenAI’s for-profit turn and its growing focus on revenue.

Industry sources say this kind of build is still rare outside a few major players.

If OpenAI can make it work, these same tools could eventually become part of ChatGPT’s product offering for brands.

Creative & Campaign Takeaways for Agencies

OpenAI’s latest move raises some useful points for marketing leaders:

• In-house growth teams are now expected to own the tools, not just the outcomes.
• Technical hires are quickly becoming core to modern marketing strategy, not just support.
• Companies with large user bases are finding ways to act faster by building their own stack.

This may not be the norm yet, but it’s a clear sign of where things are heading.

As more platforms grow their direct relationships with users, the ability to manage campaigns from the inside becomes a strategic edge.

Our Take: Is OpenAI Quietly Building an Ad Platform?

It seems like it.

The job listing reads less like a one-off hire and more like the start of a full product build.

If ChatGPT eventually lets brands submit goals, upload creative, and run campaigns directly inside the platform, this team will have laid the foundation.

And if it works well enough, OpenAI could move from buying ads to selling them.

To see how OpenAI is using storytelling, not just infrastructure, to expand its brand, read about its AI-generated short film Critterz at Cannes.

Want to future-proof your ad stack? These agencies help brands combine in-house control with world-class creative.