This approach makes a lot of sense. Advertising is a marketplace and this is a great way to bootstrap advertising inventory. Its inevitable they will allow advertisers to manage ad spend directly through OpenAI but right now the product is too new to capture meaningful ad budget. This way they can begin testing delivery and develop proof points around ROI and build towards larger ad spend directly.

>lower margins (more middlemen taking fees)

middlemen taking fees is not the measure for comparison, the question is whether you could run your own ad business for your own platform and keep your costs lower than established players who sell on all platforms. the answer is generally "no"

look how much money coca cola makes, and they sell it cheaper than water and still pay for advertising!! we should all make our own coke and not advertise it...

I agree with you, but IMO the details are too sparse here to figure out what's really happening. Still, it feels very dangerous to try to go the reseller route first as you lose a ton of control and become dependent on your partner to support all the feature you add yourself in a timely fashion.

why would you be surprised about this? its pretty obvious that execs give no fucks except for money.

I guess OpenAI couldn't train AdManagerGPT to ignore the client (except when it's time to renew), suggest more ad spend, and turn off any of the features that let you control your budget.

The missing part seems to be that they need infusions of money to keep this “business model” running a little longer. In this world if you want prompt money and lots of it, advertising is the way.

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My guess is that three letter agencies will have access to this data and are requiring this partnership.