OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets
OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT Ads, the advertising product it began piloting in the United States in February, into 31 European countries next week. The company calls this its largest expansion of ChatGPT Ads to date, coming after the product had already grown from the initial U.S. pilot to eight additional markets over the prior six months. The source names nine of the 31 new countries: Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria.
Access will roll out in stages. Advertisers will initially reach ChatGPT Ads in the new markets through OpenAI's own Ads Solutions team, agency partners, and technology partners; open self-service access through Ads Manager is planned for later this summer. As in OpenAI's existing markets, ads will be shown only to people on the Free and Go plans; Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscribers keep an ad-free experience.
OpenAI frames the product around user intent rather than keyword search: people come to ChatGPT describing a goal, such as planning a trip, choosing business software, furnishing a home, or learning something new, and ChatGPT Ads is meant to reach them at points across that decision process. The company also restates its privacy commitments: conversations stay private from advertisers, customer data is never sold, ads are always labeled and kept separate from ChatGPT's own answers, advertising does not influence those answers, and users can control ad personalization or choose an ad-free paid plan instead.
Alongside the geographic expansion, OpenAI says it has built out the ChatGPT Ads platform over the same six months. Bidding now goes beyond CPM and CPC to include conversion optimization, geo-targeting and custom audiences help advertisers reach more specific segments, and measurement has been extended past clicks through the OpenAI Pixel, a Conversions API, and third-party measurement integrations. OpenAI says tens of thousands of marketers have advertised on ChatGPT so far, and it is inviting more businesses to sign up at ads.openai.com.
Key facts
- Next week, ChatGPT Ads expands to 31 European countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria, which OpenAI calls its largest expansion of the product to date.
- The rollout follows a U.S. pilot that began in February and, over the following six months, grew to eight additional markets before this European expansion.
- Advertisers first reach the new markets through OpenAI's Ads Solutions team, agency partners, and technology partners; self-service access through Ads Manager follows later this summer.
- Ads are shown only to users on the Free and Go plans; Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscribers remain ad-free, and OpenAI says it keeps conversations private from advertisers and never sells customer data.
- New platform tools include bidding for conversion optimization beyond CPM and CPC, geo-targeting, custom audiences, and measurement extended past clicks via the OpenAI Pixel, a Conversions API, and third-party integrations; tens of thousands of marketers have already advertised on ChatGPT.
Why it matters
OpenAI is turning ChatGPT Ads from a U.S. pilot into a genuinely international product just six months after testing began, calling this 31-country rollout its largest expansion since launch. It shows OpenAI treating advertising as a fast-scaling second revenue line alongside subscriptions, and it brings a chat-native ad format, built around what people are trying to accomplish rather than search keywords, into one of the world's largest advertising markets.
Who it affects
Free and Go plan users in the newly added European countries will start seeing ads inside ChatGPT for the first time; Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscribers are unaffected and stay ad-free. Access for now falls mainly to larger marketers who can work through OpenAI's Ads Solutions team or through agency and technology partners, since open self-service access via Ads Manager does not arrive until later in the summer. The expansion also puts OpenAI's ad practices and privacy claims in front of European users and regulators.
How to use it
Advertisers in the new European markets do not yet get open self-service access: OpenAI says that arrives through Ads Manager later this summer. Until then, businesses reach ChatGPT Ads through OpenAI's own Ads Solutions team or through agency and technology partners, and can register interest at ads.openai.com. On the platform side, OpenAI says it has broadened bidding beyond CPM and CPC to include conversion optimization, added geo-targeting and custom audiences for reaching specific customer segments, and expanded measurement past clicks with the OpenAI Pixel, a Conversions API, and third-party measurement integrations.
How solid is it
This is a first-party OpenAI announcement rather than independently reported news, and it carries limited hard numbers. Only nine of the 31 new countries are named explicitly, the earlier eight additional markets are not named at all, and tens of thousands of marketers is an imprecise figure with no exact count. No calendar date is given for the next week launch or the later this summer self-service rollout, and the February pilot start carries no year.
Risks and caveats
The largest expansion to date claim, the privacy assurances, and the tens of thousands of marketers figure all come from OpenAI itself, with no third-party audit or precise user count in this post. The specific agency and technology partners are not named, only described by category, and self-service access is an undated later this summer promise rather than an immediate feature. No pricing, budget, or revenue figures for ChatGPT Ads appear anywhere in the source, and no author byline is given: OpenAI speaks throughout in the collective we.
“Protecting the trust people place in ChatGPT is foundational to our approach to advertising.”
— OpenAI