Ads move into the conversation, and Turkey takes teens out of the feed

Put this week’s news side by side and two movements show up. Advertising is flowing toward the places where people talk to AI. And at least in Turkey, the state is pulling the youngest users out of the feed altogether. Both come back to the same question: where is attention now, and who gets in, under what rules?

ChatGPT ads go visual

ChatGPT started testing ads in the US in February. According to Marketing Brew on October 8, ads have since expanded to 31 more markets, and a new format is on the way. When users on the Free and Go plans generate images in ChatGPT, they will see image ads showing a product in use. The ads are labeled and kept separate from the generated image. Testing starts later in October with a group of US advertisers.

The format matters less to me than the list of partners that came with it. Kochava, Tealium and Triple Whale for conversion measurement. Kantar and Cint for brand lift. Haus and WorkMagic for incrementality, in early stages. Early pilots with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science for brand suitability. Serious budgets don’t go anywhere without independent measurement, and with this list OpenAI is telling buyers: you can check my numbers.

I could not confirm whether Turkey is among the 31 new markets. The report doesn’t list them.

Meta brings the checkout into the chat

On October 6, for Advertising Week New York, Meta announced a run of updates. The AI assistant in Ads Manager now remembers more about your business: past campaigns, seasonality, the goals you have stated. Advantage+ can now turn still images into video, and that is generally available. Building campaigns, changing targeting and adjusting budgets through conversation is described as “coming soon.”

The commerce tests caught my eye. Meta is testing direct checkout with Shopify inside Meta Business Agent on Messenger. Checkout tests in Meta AI with Adyen, PayPal, Shopify and Stripe begin this fall, and PayPal is being added as a wallet in Muse.

Many of the Turkish brands I work with already sell through Instagram DMs: the order comes in by message, payment by link or bank transfer. What Meta is building is the organized version of that habit. It hasn’t said which countries the tests will run in. The direction is clear anyway. The line between a shop and a conversation is fading.

Searching for a brand now starts with a summary

Measurements gathered by Search Engine Journal on October 9 are hard to ignore. Ahrefs searched the names of 100 of the world’s biggest brands on US Google every week. On July 1, only 5 of 98 usable results showed an AI Overview. By September 30, 63 of 100 did, and in 48 of those the overview sat in the top position. DemandSphere’s daily series put the share of branded searches with an overview at 26.12 percent on September 1 and 90.48 percent on September 27. Chris Long of Nectiv found overviews for 93 of 100 enterprise brands in his own sample. The samples and methods differ, so the numbers don’t compare one to one. All three point the same way.

The branded search was the click a business could count on. Whoever typed your name was already looking for you. Now that person reads a summary first, and the summary is assembled from what the web says about you. These figures are from the US, and I don’t know whether other markets are moving as fast. My suggestion is simple. Search your own brand this week and read the summary the way a customer would.

Google’s one-box agent for work

At Gemini at Work on October 8, Google Cloud introduced the Gemini agent for businesses. You start from a single prompt box. The agent plans the work, uses tools, connects to company systems and hands back finished output in your documents, inbox or development environment. Google says it has built-in cost controls but gives no details.

Last week’s question, where does the work live, applies here too. Google’s answer: in the documents and email you already use.

Turkey closes social media to under-15s

This is the story of the week for anyone working in Turkey. A regulation prepared by the Presidency of Cybersecurity was published in the Official Gazette on October 10, 2026, issue 33396, and takes effect on November 1. Social networks accessible from Turkey, domestic or foreign, may no longer open accounts for children under 15. Age is proven with an “age verification token” obtained through e-Devlet, the government’s online portal. The token shows only whether the user is past the 15 and 18 thresholds and carries no other personal data. Existing accounts must be verified by March 31, 2027.

Users aged 15 to 17 get a separate version of each service. According to PPC Land’s article-by-article reading, that version has no personalized advertising, keeps profiles private, and allows no live streaming. Visual content that follows on by scrolling, tapping or autoplay is also banned. As written, that last rule appears to cover the feed and Stories themselves.

For advertisers the consequence is direct. Education, gaming and fashion brands that speak to teenagers will not be able to show personalized ads to 15 to 17 year olds in Turkey after November 1. Expect audience estimates in ad tools to shrink. How the platforms will implement all this is not yet known.

What the week leaves behind

Advertising is lining up measurement partners to move into AI interfaces. Selling is moving into the chat. Even a search for a brand’s own name now opens with a summary. In the same week, Turkey wrote strict rules to keep teenagers out of that stream. Reading the two together, I think next year’s media plans will be as much about who an ad cannot reach as where it runs.

What I’ll be watching:

• How platforms implement e-Devlet age checks on November 1.
• The first results from ChatGPT’s image ad test.
• Which countries get Meta’s in-chat checkout.