What Are ChatGPT Sponsored Agents? A Home Services Guide

ChatGPT Sponsored Agents are ads that let a person open a separate, labeled chat with an AI agent working for the advertiser. OpenAI began testing them with select US advertisers on September 16, 2026, and Angi said the same day that it is among the first brands in the pilot, with an agent that can take a homeowner from a ChatGPT conversation about a project into Angi's service-request flow. For a 40-branch HVAC or plumbing brand, that is a new paid route for a lead marketplace to hold the homeowner's conversation in its own chat, away from the answer where your brand might be named, and you can't buy the same format yet, because OpenAI's help center says it isn't accepting early-access requests.

The organic answer is still open to every brand, and Angi is already strong there: in the Cheers Market Baseline, ChatGPT cited Angi or HomeAdvisor in 49% of its answers to home-services questions in 60 US metros between August 31 and September 20, 2026. No ad buys a place in that answer, so your branches compete for it on the same terms. To see whether ChatGPT names your branch or a directory for your top question in one market, run the AI Visibility Grader for that location.

Last verified: September 29, 2026.

What a Sponsored Agent does

OpenAI's September 16 announcement, "Reimagining advertising with AI," describes a person who sees a relevant ad in ChatGPT and chooses to open a labeled conversation with the business's agent. In that chat they can explain what matters to them, ask follow-up questions and follow a link to the business's website when they're ready. OpenAI says the conversation is "distinct from ChatGPT's independent answers" and separate from the one the person started.

The help center page for the format, updated September 17, calls it an ad format that lets people chat with an AI representative of a business. It is available only to selected advertisers in a limited alpha, and OpenAI adds that you may see Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT even if your own campaigns can't use them.

Two more rules come from OpenAI's general FAQ on ads in ChatGPT, updated September 28. Ads show only to people on the Free and Go plans, never on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu accounts, and not to accounts identified as belonging to someone under 18, so a Sponsored Agent can only start where an ad can show. And when a person messages an advertiser through an ad, OpenAI says the advertiser sees only the messages sent to it directly; advertisers never receive the person's other chats, memories, name, email or precise location.

What Angi announced

Angi's release says an Angi-branded agent may appear in relevant ChatGPT conversations about home services. A homeowner can keep talking with it to describe the project and, when the job needs a pro, move into Angi's service-request flow to be connected with local pros. Angi co-founder Angie Hicks framed the pilot as a shorter path from a project conversation in ChatGPT to a local pro.

It isn't Angi's first presence inside ChatGPT. On March 4, 2026, Angi launched an Angi app in ChatGPT, which homeowners add themselves from ChatGPT's Apps section. The September release draws the line between the two: the app is something a homeowner chooses to add, while the agent may appear as "a clearly labeled sponsored experience" inside a relevant conversation. Angi also went live as a connected app in Google's Gemini on August 13.

OpenAI's ad product grew over the same months. Its US ads test started on February 9, 2026, and by August 31 the company said ChatGPT Ads were available in over 40 countries. On July 31, Search Engine Roundtable reported screenshots of an "Agent" campaign type in Ads Manager for select advertisers.

What this means for your brand depends on your relationship with Angi. If your branches take Angi leads, the agent may add requests through that channel, on Angi's terms. If they don't, a homeowner who finishes Angi's flow is matched with the pros in Angi's network, and your brand isn't part of that chat. None of the releases gives the pilot's cost, how many conversations Angi's agent has handled or how many became service requests.

Angi is already cited in half of ChatGPT's US answers

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode the same 32 home-services questions in 100 US and Canadian metros. Across ChatGPT's 5,659 answers in our 60 US metros from August 31 to September 20, 2026, it cited Expertise.com in 53.5%, Angi or HomeAdvisor in 49.1%, BBB in 9.8%, Thumbtack in 8.3% and Yelp in 0.8%. It cited a business's own website in at least 36.7%, a lower bound because we can only match websites we know belong to a business.

Across all 9,434 ChatGPT answers, US and Canada together, Angi or HomeAdvisor fell to 29% and Expertise.com to 32%, while 84% of answers cited at least one directory, review platform or "best of" list. Canada explains the drop. Angi and HomeAdvisor appeared in 1 of 3,775 Canadian ChatGPT answers, with HomeStars filling that role, and OpenAI describes the Sponsored Agents test as limited to select US advertisers. A plumbing brand with branches on both sides of the border should expect the Angi overlap on its US side.

The share also moves by trade. Across all 100 metros, ChatGPT cited Angi or HomeAdvisor in 32.8% of its plumbing answers and 20.1% of its HVAC answers, where Expertise.com was cited in 32.1%. Where ChatGPT gets its information breaks the full source mix down by engine and country.

These are citations, which means Angi's pages were among the sources ChatGPT read, not that ChatGPT told homeowners to hire through Angi. They still matter here, because Angi's pages were part of about half of ChatGPT's US home-services answers without any ad involved, and the same company can now also appear as a paid, labeled chat. We haven't measured how often a Sponsored Agent offer appears alongside those answers, and OpenAI hasn't said.

What OpenAI and Angi haven't said

Most of what an operator would want to know before budgeting is unpublished. As of September 29, 2026:

• Price. OpenAI hasn't published what a Sponsored Agent costs or how it's billed.
• Who's in the pilot. OpenAI says only that it is testing with select advertisers in the United States, and Angi calls itself part of a select group of brands. Neither gives a list or a count.
• Eligibility for home services. The help center says the format is in a limited alpha and early-access requests aren't being accepted. No criteria are published.
• How often it appears. There's no public data on how often an agent shows, or on which kinds of conversations.
• What the agent knows. OpenAI hasn't documented what an agent is built from, or whether anything from the person's original chat carries into it. Search Engine Roundtable's July 31 report relayed a LinkedIn description of the test build (a business profile drawn from the advertiser's website, instructions, product feeds, MCP tools and lead forms); OpenAI hasn't confirmed it.

Should a multi-location brand test it?

Not until OpenAI opens access, and even then only if the systems behind the chat are already in place. An agent that talks to a homeowner about a burst pipe is making promises on behalf of a specific branch, so four things need to be true before it runs:

• It answers from branch-level facts: services, service areas, hours, phone numbers and any pricing rules for each location, from the same record your location pages and Google Business Profiles use. The routing crosswalk in our ChatGPT Get Quote readiness guide is the right starting point.
• Every conversation lands with the branch that owns the job. In OpenAI's description the person follows a link to the business's website when they're ready, so that page has to carry the request to the right branch rather than to a national form.
• Attribution reaches the CRM. HubSpot, OpenAI's first CRM partner for ChatGPT Ads, says its integration lets a business "trace a closed deal back to the campaign that started it." OpenAI's September 16 email to advertisers, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable, added a choice of 7-, 14- or 30-day click windows and 0- or 1-day view windows for conversion reporting.
• A small budget with a stop rule: one or two markets, one service, and a written condition for pausing, the same pattern as the pilot in ChatGPT Ads for home services.

The failure modes are specific to the trade. A restoration company's agent must not promise a 60-minute arrival in a county where the nearest crew is two hours away. An HVAC brand with branches in Phoenix and Dallas needs the agent to know which one does heat-pump installs, and a garage door franchise needs it to stop at territory lines so a request from one owner's ZIP code doesn't land with another.

Until then, watch four things: the availability line on OpenAI's help page, whether a Sponsored Agent offer shows up on the questions homeowners ask in your markets, any results Angi or OpenAI publish from the pilot, and whether the format opens to advertisers outside the US.

What to do this week

Pick your five highest-revenue US markets and the question a homeowner asks most for each trade you run there, for example "who should I call to replace my AC in Phoenix." On Monday, build a sheet with one row per market and question. Between Tuesday and Thursday, have someone ask each question once in ChatGPT from a logged-out browser or a Free account. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise accounts never see ads, and not every Free account is in the ads test yet, so an empty ad slot on one account proves little. For each answer, record whether your brand or the right branch is named, whether Angi or HomeAdvisor is cited, which other directories and "best of" lists are cited, and whether an ad or a Sponsored Agent offer appears and whose it is.

On Friday, sort the rows. Where a directory is cited and your branch is missing, claim and correct that listing first, because ChatGPT cited that page for the question. Where Angi is cited and your branches don't take Angi leads, mark the market to recheck as the pilot widens. Answers vary from one run to the next, so read the pattern across markets rather than any single answer, and run the same sheet again in a month.

Methodology

Cheers Market Baseline: 34,742 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode to 32 home-services questions in 100 US and Canadian metros, August 31 to September 20, 2026. This article uses the 9,434 ChatGPT answers, 5,659 of them from 60 US metros and 3,775 from 40 Canadian metros. A share is the percentage of answers that cited a domain at least once, with citation links de-duplicated within each answer. Source groups are built by hand from domains; "business website" counts only domains we know belong to a named business, so it is a lower bound. Each question was asked once per city per week, so the figures describe this sample, not a fixed ranking.

Sources

• Reimagining advertising with AI. OpenAI, September 16, 2026, read September 29, 2026. Announces the Sponsored Agents test with select US advertisers, how the labeled conversation works and its separation from ChatGPT's answers, plus the HubSpot and Shopify integrations.
• Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT Ads. OpenAI Help Center, updated September 17, 2026, read September 29, 2026. Defines the format, the limited alpha, and that early-access requests aren't being accepted.
• Ads in ChatGPT. OpenAI Help Center, updated September 28, 2026, read September 29, 2026. The February 9, 2026 US test start, which plans see ads, answer independence, and what advertisers can see when a person messages them through an ad.
• A milestone in expanding access to AI. OpenAI, August 31, 2026, read September 29, 2026. ChatGPT Ads availability in over 40 countries.
• Angi Among First Brands to Pilot Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT. Angi via GlobeNewswire, September 16, 2026. What Angi's agent does and how it differs from the Angi app.
• Angi Launches the Angi App in ChatGPT. Angi via GlobeNewswire, March 4, 2026. The opt-in Angi app in ChatGPT.
• Angi Among the First Home Services Marketplaces Available in Gemini as a Connected App. Angi via GlobeNewswire, August 12, 2026. The Gemini connected app, available from August 13.
• HubSpot and OpenAI deepen partnership to bring AI transformation to every SMB. HubSpot, updated September 16, 2026. HubSpot as the first CRM integration for ChatGPT Ads and its closed-deal attribution claim.
• OpenAI Testing Sponsored Agents For ChatGPT Ads. Search Engine Roundtable, September 16, 2026. Reports OpenAI's email to advertisers, including the click and view attribution windows.
• ChatGPT Ads Business Agent Conversation Campaign Type. Search Engine Roundtable, July 31, 2026. Reports the "Agent" campaign type seen in Ads Manager for select advertisers, from a LinkedIn post; not confirmed by OpenAI.
• Cheers Market Baseline, August 31 to September 20, 2026, 9,434 ChatGPT answers in 100 US and Canadian metros. Cheers Research methodology. Source of every citation share above.

Dylan Allen-Arnegård is the CEO & Co-Founder of Cheers, the local search platform for multi-location service businesses.