In today's Digest, we discuss Brussels eyeing Big Tech through a broad levy on large corporations, OpenAI launching visual ads alongside ChatGPT image generation, and pubX raising USD$5m (£3.75m) as it acquires Compliant.

OpenAI launches visual ads alongside image generation results

OpenAI is adding visual display ads to ChatGPT, placing them alongside the images users ask the chatbot to generate. The format starts rolling out later this month, in the US only, featuring products and services from an initial test group of advertisers. OpenAI says the ads will be clearly labelled and won't influence ChatGPT's answers.

The move builds on the ads OpenAI introduced earlier this year to fund its free and low-cost tiers, which expanded to India in August, and gives brands a more visual way to tell their stories as the format eventually scales towards ChatGPT's 1.2 billion weekly users.

Brussels eyes Big Tech through broad corporate levy

The European Commission is considering taxing big US tech companies through a wider levy on large corporations, according to the Financial Times, in a bid to raise EU revenue without provoking a backlash from the Trump administration. The plan would rework the Commission's Corporate Resource for Europe (CORE) proposal so that every company operating in the EU with annual revenue above €100m (£87m) pays a yearly lump-sum contribution, capturing Apple, Google and Meta without singling them out.

The approach is a workaround for a politically awkward problem. An EU official told the FT that some member states oppose a pure digital tax for fear of upsetting Washington, while many more oppose CORE itself, making a broader levy the likeliest compromise.

pubX raises $5m and acquires Compliant

UK-based agentic ad startup pubX has raised a USD$5m (£3.75m) Series A led by Chicago Ventures and acquired Compliant, a media quality and governance startup co-founded by former marketers including Jamie Barnard, Unilever's onetime general counsel for global marketing, media and ecommerce.

The funding will support pubX's expansion into the US, build out the demand side of its business, and integrate Compliant's data integrity signals and transparency metrics into its platform. The price of the Compliant deal was not disclosed.