# Generative Engine Advertising: What Smalk french's first tests reveal *France's first AI ad tests show the market splitting in two: ads sold by the engine, and placements on the sources the engine cites. Here is what brands learned.* Published: 2026-10-14 | Read time: 5 min read | Source: https://www.smalk.ai/news/ai-overviews-chatgpt-ads-ce-que-les-marques-apprennent-de-leurs-premiers-tests?lang=en --- France's first generative engine advertising tests answer the question media buyers have asked all year: will AI Search ads look like Google Ads, or like something new? Both. At Minted's Future of Search & GEO event in October 2026, brands showed a market splitting into two layers: ads bought from the engine, and placements on the publisher pages the engine reads. - AI Search advertising in France now runs on two rails: onsite ads sold by the engine and offsite placements on the sources engines cite. - Onsite costs look accessible, with French ChatGPT Ads CPMs far below the US launch price. - Offsite campaigns target the answer itself and pay the publishers whose content grounds it. - Test budgets are small and borrowed from branding or search, so the metrics chosen now will shape budgets for years. ## What generative engine advertising is, and why it now has two layers Generative engine advertising (GEA) is the paid channel of AI Search: buying brand presence in the answers ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews compose. Onsite GEA is bought from the engine and sits as a sponsored unit next to the answer. Offsite GEA places native, AI-readable messages on the pages engines treat as authoritative, so the brand enters the material the answer is built from. ## From Search Network and Display Network to onsite and offsite GEA The open web settled this structure twenty years ago. Google sold its results page through the Search Network and monetized everyone else's pages through the Display Network and AdSense. The engine owned the intent, publishers owned the context, and both got paid. The agentic web replays that split with one change: the answer absorbs the context. The engine reads the publisher page and summarizes it, so whoever sits on cited pages shapes the recommendation, even when nobody visits them. ## What Minted reported from Future of Search & GEO, and what we verified Minted's report of 9 October 2026 by Julia Luczak-Rougeaux (https://www.mntd.fr/ai-overviews-chatgpt-ads-ce-que-les-marques-apprennent-de-leurs-premiers-tests/) gathered testimony from Carrefour, SeLoger, Bouygues Telecom, Tediber and Mercedes-Benz. Labelium (Cosmo5) put AI Overviews presence at 52% of French queries, 80 to 90% on informational topics and about 5% in e-commerce. SeLoger said AI assistants rose from 0.3% to 1.5% of its traffic this year. Onsite, Bouygues Telecom reported ChatGPT Ads CPMs well below the 45 to 60 dollars often quoted and a sevenfold rise in AI assistant traffic. Carrefour, live from day one with Cosmo5, said the channel brings about a tenth of its organic volume, led by Shopping formats. Labelium sees most test budgets at 5,000 to 20,000 euros a month, taken from branding or search. Offsite, Smartkeyword (Cosmo5) presented a Smalk campaign for mattress brand Tediber on one prompt about mattresses under 400 euros: visibility rose from 12.5% to 80% during activation, at an average position of 1.62. Mercedes-Benz and Performics reported mention rates rising from 28% to an average of 50% across fifteen electric SUV prompts, with fewer factual errors about its models. Two points needed correcting. Independent coverage dates ChatGPT Ads in France to 24 August 2026, and a Digital Boost barometer found French CPMs of 10 to 12 euros in September, against about 60 dollars at the US launch, which supports Bouygues. Carrefour's ChatGPT app, launched on 26 March 2026, was reported as a first for a European food retailer, with checkout on Carrefour.fr rather than in the conversation. Stage figures have not been independently audited. ## Will AI engines capture the whole AI Search ad market? ### The case for onsite dominance The strongest argument is historical. Google captured most search value by owning the results page, and OpenAI is following fast: self-serve buying, CPC bidding, a pixel and a conversions API within months. If the engine sells the intent moment directly, why buy anywhere else? ### Why the answer itself sits outside the ad slot Because the sponsored unit sits beside the answer, not inside it, and only for Free and Go users of one engine. The recommendation is still composed from cited sources across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews. Onsite GEA buys adjacency; offsite GEA shapes the inputs. Serious buyers will run both, as they ran search and display for two decades. ## What this means for brands and for publishers ### For CMOs, media buyers and agencies: fund two lines, measure one outcome Do not let the first channel to send an invoice define your AI Search strategy. Fund an onsite line and an offsite line, and judge both on presence inside answers: mention rate, position and accuracy. The Mercedes-Benz error-rate drop shows that being cited correctly is a brand-safety issue, not only a media one. ### For publishers: your cited pages are the inventory Onsite ads pay the engine. Offsite GEA is the first model that pays the publisher whose page grounds the answer, even when nobody clicks. Publishers that know which AI agents read them, and on which topics, can price that authority instead of waiting for referral traffic that informational Overviews will not return. ## Three signals to watch through 2027 Watch whether French onsite CPMs climb toward US levels, pushing buyers toward offsite visibility. Watch whether agencies such as Cosmo5 and Performics formalize offsite GEA as a service line. And watch for a shared metric of presence inside answers: whoever standardizes measurement will set the price. ## Conclusion Hold on to this: generative engine advertising is not one channel but two, the slot beside the answer and the sources inside it. Smalk AI operates the second layer, an AI Search ad network placing native ads for AI agents on the publisher pages they cite, giving brands presence inside the answer and publishers revenue that does not depend on clicks. What to watch next: which metric for presence inside answers the buy side adopts first, because 2027 budgets will follow it. ## FAQ ### What is the difference between onsite and offsite generative engine advertising? Onsite GEA is bought from an AI engine, such as ChatGPT Ads, and appears as a sponsored unit next to the answer. Offsite GEA places native, AI-readable messages on the publisher pages engines cite, so the brand becomes part of the answer's source material. ### How much does ChatGPT Ads cost in France? Early French campaigns showed CPMs of roughly 10 to 12 euros in September 2026, according to a Digital Boost barometer, against 60 dollars at the US launch in February 2026. Prices may rise as more advertisers enter the auction. ### Does offsite GEA replace GEO? No. GEO and AEO improve how a brand's own content is cited organically. Offsite GEA is the paid layer that adds presence on third-party sources engines already trust, often activated on the prompts GEO tools surface. ### Can a brand guarantee it will be mentioned in an AI answer? No. No advertiser controls model outputs. Placements on cited pages raise the likelihood of a mention and are measured as lift against a baseline.