WSJ Tech News Briefing · Friday, September 18, 2026
While OpenAI's ad business is growing quickly, some advertisers are not yet thrilled with the results, citing the low placement of ads and their disjointed feel. However, the situation is compared to early days of Facebook's ad business, which eventually became highly successful.
“And advertisers are not thrilled yet because the ads where they sit are very low on the page and feel very disjointed from the conversation at the top.”
“But it's not unheard of that there's a slow build here and that they're having sort of mixed results. Facebook in the early days, right before their IPO, had many advertisers that actually didn't think Facebook advertised didn't work. Some big advertisers like GM pulled out weeks before their IPO. And look at that ad business today. It's the second largest in the world.”