Short reads for short attention spans

OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads across 31 European countries

OpenAI has officially launched its largest advertising expansion to date, bringing conversational ads to 31 European markets—including the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

The rollout extends OpenAI's monetisation engine into 35 global territories, offering brands conversational ad placements targeting high-intent user queries. Commercial placements are restricted to users on the Free and low-cost Go tiers, keeping Plus, Pro, and Enterprise accounts completely ad-free. During the initial European launch, ads are purely contextual—aligning with the live conversation topic rather than personal user profiling—to comply strictly with EU and UK privacy standards.

At Altair, we have been running performance ad campaigns inside ChatGPT across multiple global markets for a while now. If you want to explore how to capture early conversational search intent before the market saturates, get in touch with our team today.

Why it matters

• First-Mover Intent Advantage: Conversational ads capture users during explicit problem-solving modes. Being an early adopter allows brands to capture intent at a fraction of competitive search engine costs.
• No Landing Page Required: Advertisers can leverage conversational CPC units that drive users directly into dedicated, brand-trained chat threads rather than high-friction external websites.
• Contextual Privacy Framework: Because targeting is strictly topic-based, European advertisers can scale performance without navigating complex cross-site tracking consent hurdles.

Further reading at Tech Republic:

OpenAI Brings ChatGPT Ads to 31 European Countries: Who Will See Them

Google Ads forces automated video AI resizing for Performance Max

Google Ads has notified advertisers that starting in September 2026, it will deploy generative AI to automatically reframe and resize Performance Max video assets unless advertisers manually opt out.

The automated upgrade scans active PMax campaigns for missing aspect ratios (such as 9:16 vertical or 1:1 square formats) and uses generative AI to extend horizontal 16:9 videos. While Google claims the tool maximises video reach across inventory like YouTube Shorts, the automated cropping mechanism removes up to two-thirds of the horizontal frame. This creates significant brand-safety risks for assets with logos, burned-in text overlays, or legal disclaimers placed near the edges.

Advertisers who want to maintain strict creative control over their video assets must submit an explicit opt-out form or contact their Google account team before 4 September 2026.

Why it matters

• Brand Compliance Risk: Automated 9:16 cropping cuts out edge elements. Logos, promotional text, and required legal disclaimers located outside the centre frame will be cropped out or distorted by AI background expansion.
• Strict Opt-Out Deadline: If no action is taken by 4 September 2026, Google will automatically apply generative reframing across all existing, approved PMax video assets.
• Pre-empting Automation: Creative leads should audit active PMax campaigns immediately and either upload native vertical video cuts or execute the account-level opt-out.

Further reading at Search Engine Land:

Google Ads will use generative AI to resize Performance Max video ads

B2B software discovery shifts as buyers turn from directories to LLMs

A major structural shift is underway in software procurement as B2B buyers bypass traditional review directories (like Capterra and G2) in favour of conversational AI assistants. According to recent B2B buyer reports, over 50% of decision-makers now initiate software research directly within LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Rather than manually navigating listicles, sorting by star ratings, and reading static reviews on aggregator sites, enterprise procurement leads are asking conversational engines to evaluate feature depth, summarise pricing models, and generate bespoke side-by-side vendor comparisons on the fly. This behavioral change is forcing software marketers to reallocate budgets away from directory ad placements toward Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)—focusing on structuring product data and case studies so that LLMs accurately cite and recommend their tools during conversational research.

Why it matters

• Siphoning Directory Referral Traffic: Software directories are experiencing organic referral traffic drops as buyers find complete evaluation summaries directly within chat interfaces.
• The Importance of Structured Data: Large language models heavily cite authoritative, machine-readable comparison data. SaaS brands must ensure their technical capabilities, customer proof points, and pricing structures are clearly published in clean, extractable formats.
• Winning the AI Shortlist: Because LLMs deliver synthesised recommendations rather than pages of blue links, missing out on conversational search citations means being excluded from buyer shortlists before a sales representative is ever contacted.

Further reading at the G2:

The Answer Economy: How AI Search is Rewiring B2B Software Buying.