ChatGPT Ads expand to 26 more countries as OpenAI passes 100,000 advertisers

What OpenAI announced

ChatGPT Ads are going to 26 more countries. In an announcement dated 21 October 2026, OpenAI said the expansion takes its advertising product to 89 countries in total, and that more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on ChatGPT since ads launched "just over eight months ago." The post frames the move as a continuation of earlier rollouts in Europe, Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

The new markets are spread across several regions. OpenAI says that, after earlier launches in Mexico and Brazil, ads are coming to 14 more Latin American countries, naming Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. It is also launching in further markets across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and the examples it gives are Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. OpenAI did not publish the full list of 26 countries in the post, so the names above are the ones it chose to highlight rather than the complete set.

Ads still appear only on the Free and Go plans. OpenAI repeats that Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions remain ad-free. In other words, the expansion changes where ads can be shown, not who sees them: in each new country, people using ChatGPT without a paid subscription, or on the low-cost Go tier, are the audience.

How advertisers get in

OpenAI says advertisers in the new countries can buy ChatGPT Ads in two ways: through technology partners, or with self-service access through Ads Manager, its own buying tool at ads.openai.com. That detail matters for smaller businesses. A self-service tool means a local shop or regional brand can set up a campaign with a card and a budget instead of negotiating with a sales team.

That is a long way from how the product started. MarTech reported on 21 October that the early version of ChatGPT advertising looked like a tightly controlled pilot, priced per thousand impressions, with a $200,000 minimum commitment and access limited to a small group of large advertisers. According to the same report, OpenAI now supports both cost-per-thousand and cost-per-click bidding with recommended click bids of $3 to $5, and businesses in the Southeast Asian markets added in September could buy through Ads Manager from day one.

Targeting has grown too. AI Lookout has covered how advertisers can now target ChatGPT users with uploaded email, phone and Android ID lists alongside "context hints" that describe the conversations where an ad might fit, and how OpenAI began testing visual ads during image generation. Wednesday's announcement does not add a new targeting tool. It adds countries where the existing ones can be used.

The numbers behind the push

The headline figure is the advertiser count, and it is OpenAI's own. The company does not say how many of the 100,000 advertisers are still active, how much they spent, or how many ran only a small test. CNBC reported that OpenAI's ad business reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate in August, up from $100 million in March, figures CNBC had previously reported. A run rate projects a recent period's revenue over a full year, so it describes momentum rather than money already booked.

Outside estimates give a sense of the pace. MarTech cites Dan Salmon of New Street Research as saying the number of ChatGPT advertisers rose from about 20,000 at the end of August to roughly 60,000 in early October. If both that estimate and OpenAI's new figure are right, the advertiser base grew by about two-thirds in a matter of weeks. MarTech also says, citing The Information, that OpenAI is still likely to miss the $2.4 billion in 2026 advertising revenue it had projected to investors. AI Lookout has not seen those projections, and OpenAI does not address them in its post.

The click prices quoted in that coverage help explain the gap between advertisers and revenue. MarTech reports clicks on ChatGPT costing about $5, against $30 to $50 for similar commercial software ads on Google. Cheap clicks make ChatGPT an easy place to experiment, but a large number of inexpensive experiments does not add up to a large ad business on its own.

Why OpenAI is doing this now

Reuters, in a report carried by CNA, linked the expansion to OpenAI building up its advertising business to boost revenue ahead of a potential initial public offering. CNBC adds that OpenAI executives have signalled interest in a 2027 listing. The comparison investors will draw is with Anthropic, whose draft IPO filing showed a $80.7 billion first-half loss according to reports this week. Both companies spend heavily on computing power, and OpenAI is the one that has chosen ads as an extra source of income.

CNBC also recalls that OpenAI began testing ads in the US in February and that Anthropic mocked the decision in its first Super Bowl campaign, pledging to keep Claude ad-free. Eight months on, OpenAI is treating advertising as a pillar of the business alongside enterprise contracts, consumer subscriptions and its developer API.

The geography of this expansion is telling. Many of the named countries, such as Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Peru, are large markets where relatively few people pay for a ChatGPT subscription. Ads give OpenAI a way to earn something from heavy free usage there without raising prices, and OpenAI says as much when it writes that advertising "helps support free and low-cost access to ChatGPT for people around the world."

What users should expect

For people in the new countries, the change is that ads can begin appearing in ChatGPT conversations on the Free and Go plans. OpenAI's own example is someone planning meals for their first marathon who might see an ad for a grocery delivery service that fits the conversation. The company says ads are clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT's answers, and that advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT gives.

OpenAI also restates its ads principles: conversations are kept private from advertisers and it does not sell customer data. These are company commitments rather than independently audited guarantees, and the custom-audience tools mean advertisers can still reach users whose contact details they already hold. Users who want no ads at all have the same option as before, which is to pay for Plus or a higher plan.

OpenAI did not say whether the rollout in each country is immediate or gradual, or whether local advertising rules will change which formats appear where. Those details tend to vary by market, and regulators in several of the named countries have their own rules on advertising and data protection.

What comes next

OpenAI says the next phase will add new ad formats, campaign objectives, buying options and measurement tools. It also says it is exploring "new ways for businesses to interact with consumers in more native ways in ChatGPT." CNA notes that OpenAI began testing business-sponsored agents with selected US advertisers in September, which is the clearest hint of what that could mean: an ad that opens a conversation with a brand's own AI agent instead of a link to a web page.

The one named advertiser in the announcement points the same way. L'Oreal's chief digital and marketing officer, Asmita Dubey, is quoted describing journeys "from discovery, to evaluation, to agentic commerce," language that suggests big brands see ChatGPT as a shopping channel, not only a place for banner-style ads.

Measurement is the piece advertisers will watch most closely. Performance marketers judge a channel on how reliably it shows sales or sign-ups that came from an ad, and OpenAI has said little publicly about conversion results. Until it does, the 100,000 figure shows reach and curiosity more than proven return.

What is still unknown

Several basic facts are missing from the announcement. OpenAI has not published the full country list, how many people in those countries use the Free and Go plans, what share of the 100,000 advertisers are repeat buyers, or what ads now contribute to its revenue. The revenue run-rate figures come from earlier reporting, not from audited accounts, and the advertiser estimates from New Street Research are outside estimates.

What is clear is the direction. In eight months ChatGPT Ads has gone from a US test with a high minimum spend to a self-service product in 89 countries, and OpenAI is promising more formats on top. Whether that turns into the large, steady income an IPO story needs depends on numbers OpenAI has not yet shown.