Eric Seufert: OpenAI's ad business hinges on conversion optimization before SMB onboarding scales it

johncoogan · x · 2026-09-09

Mobile Dev Memo's Eric Seufert, on TBPN, argued the biggest challenge for OpenAI's ad business is conversion optimization.

His thesis: growth only inflects once advertisers can bid a specific amount for a specific outcome — true conversion optimization closes the "gap from 1 to 10." The "gap from 10 to 100" is then simply onboarding as many SMBs as possible. In other words, OpenAI's bottleneck isn't traffic but delivering an attributable bidding and outcomes loop for advertisers.

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