By Mark Robinson, Chief Commercial Officer at Wrapped Agency
Why OpenAI’s move into advertising signals a much bigger shift for healthcare, fintech and other regulated brands.
If you’ve seen the headlines about ChatGPT introducing advertising, you might assume the story is about another platform finding a way to monetise.
I don’t think that’s the story at all. For me, the more significant shift is what this tells us about the future of search.
People are increasingly asking ChatGPT the kinds of questions they used to type into Google. They’re researching treatments, comparing providers, exploring financial products and looking for professional advice. AI isn’t just becoming another channel. It’s becoming part of how people make important decisions.
That matters for every business.
But it matters even more for organisations operating in regulated sectors like healthcare, fintech, financial services and professional services, where trust is often the deciding factor.
A quick reality check
Before we go any further, it’s worth clarifying what has actually changed.
OpenAI has announced that advertising will become part of ChatGPT’s future business model. It has also been clear that any advertisements will be clearly labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT’s answers. Advertisers won’t influence the responses the model generates, and many regulated sectors, including healthcare and financial services, are not broadly eligible to advertise on the platform today.
So this isn’t a story about buying your way into AI recommendations. It’s about understanding where AI-powered discovery is heading.
Search is changing
For years, digital marketing has revolved around traditional search engines.Businesses invested in SEO to improve rankings and they invested in Google Ads to increase visibility.
The relationship between organic search and paid search was relatively clear.
AI is changing that model.
Instead of receiving a page full of links, users are increasingly asking direct questions and receiving direct answers.
- “What’s the best accounting software for small businesses?”
- “Should I get a private health assessment?”
- “What’s the difference between an EMI and an ISA?”
The answer often arrives before the user ever visits a website. That fundamentally changes how brands are discovered.
Authority is becoming your biggest competitive advantage
If AI is helping people evaluate products, compare providers and understand complex topics, one question becomes incredibly important:
Why should the AI trust your brand enough to mention it?
Unlike traditional search, where rankings can sometimes be influenced by technical optimisation or advertising budgets, AI recommendations are built on different signals.
They favour organisations that consistently demonstrate:
- Genuine expertise
- Credible, evidence-based content
- Strong digital authority
- Trusted sources
- Clear explanations of complex topics
In other words, the organisations already investing in trust are likely to benefit most.
Why this matters even more in regulated sectors?
Healthcare, financial services and other regulated industries have always operated differently.
People aren’t choosing a streaming service or ordering a takeaway. They’re making decisions about their health, their money or their future. That raises the stakes, iIt also raises the expectations placed on marketing.
Whether someone is researching a new healthcare provider or comparing financial products, they need information they can trust.
That aligns closely with how AI systems evaluate information.
The organisations producing accurate, evidence-based and genuinely helpful content are more likely to become trusted sources over time.
For regulated brands, this should feel familiar. Authority, expertise and transparency have always mattered. AI simply reinforces their importance.
Advertising will still have a role
None of this means advertising disappears. Far from it.
As AI platforms evolve, advertising will almost certainly become a bigger part of the ecosystem. But I expect it to look very different from what we’re used to today.
In regulated sectors, advertising is already governed by strict rules around accuracy, transparency and consumer protection.
If AI becomes a place where people make high-impact decisions about their health or finances, those expectations will only increase.
The brands that succeed won’t simply be the ones with the biggest budgets. They’ll be the ones whose advertising is backed by genuine authority, responsible messaging and clear evidence.
The shift from SEO to AI visibility
For years, marketers have asked: “How do we rank on Google?”
Increasingly, the question is becoming: “How do we become a source AI trusts enough to recommend?”
That’s a very different challenge. It means thinking beyond keywords and backlinks. It means investing in expertise, publishing original insight, demonstrating real experience and building a reputation that extends beyond your own website.
In many ways, this is less about optimising for AI and more about becoming the kind of organisation AI wants to reference.
What should regulated brands do now?
The organisations preparing for this shift aren’t waiting for AI advertising to become mainstream.
They’re already investing in the foundations that make brands discoverable across both traditional search and AI-powered search.
That includes:
- Creating genuinely useful, expert-led content
- Building recognised thought leaders within the business
- Publishing evidence, research and real-world experience
- Strengthening digital authority through PR and industry visibility
- Making complex topics easier to understand
These are the same activities that build trust with people. Increasingly, they’re also the activities that build trust with AI.
Final thought
The introduction of advertising into ChatGPT isn’t the biggest story.
The bigger story is that AI is becoming part of how people discover, evaluate and choose brands.
For organisations operating in healthcare, fintech and other regulated sectors, that means visibility is no longer just about search rankings or advertising budgets.
It’s about becoming a trusted source.
Because the brands that succeed in an AI-first world won’t simply be the ones that spend the most. They’ll be the ones that earn enough authority for both people and AI to trust them.
And that’s a shift every regulated business should be paying attention to.
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