AI Ads Are Here. How The Knot Is Experimenting With ChatGPT’s New Offering

Chief marketing officer Jenny Lewis shares her strategy for advertising in the age of AI.

BY ALI DONALDSON, STAFF REPORTER @ALICDONALDSON

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

Ads have officially come to ChatGPT. OpenAI has started testing out paid advertisements on both its free model and lowest-priced tier, which costs $8 a month. (Users that opt to pay $20 or more per month or use ChatGPT through a work account will never see ads, the company says.)

The pilot program includes major retailers, such as Target and Williams Sonoma, technology companies such as Adobe, and well-known consumer brands such as Audible, Ford, Mazda, Mrs. Meyers, HelloFresh, and Factor. One of the companies that will be participating is The Knot Worldwide, the wedding behemoth that offers happy couples planning tools, wedding websites, and an online marketplace to browse vendors, read reviews, and make bookings. 

Inc. spoke with Jenny Lewis, the chief marketing officer of the Knot, to learn more about how the company is advertising on ChatGPT and what it hopes to get out of the platform’s pilot program. Here’s what she said. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

How did this opportunity come about?

We’re seeing more couples—about 36 percent—using AI in the wedding planning process, so we know it’s becoming a core part of the wedding planning journey. We’ve been exploring the space for the last couple of years, but with more rigor at the beginning of 2025.

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We had an internal team thinking about this opportunity, and one of the things that they were really excited about was launching an app within ChatGPT. That started opening the conversation with OpenAI as we were going through the process of building a native app for the Knot within ChatGPT, which we launched a couple weeks ago.

What are your goals for advertising on OpenAI? 

It’s really early days. They just launched the pilot on Monday, so it’s mostly about learning how users are going to engage with these products, what information is most relevant, and hopefully having a seat at the table to help shape a little bit about how some of this is going to come to life for advertisers.

Can you give us some idea of how much the Knot is investing in OpenAI as an ad platform?

It’s a growing part of our budget. We’re learning and figuring out what portion of our ad spend it will make up. I view it as a bit of a test budget for us at this time.  

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