A milestone in expanding access to AI

What happened

In less than 200 days after launch, ChatGPT Ads has reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate. The platform is now used by tens of thousands of advertisers and continues to expand globally. Starting later today, advertisers can purchase ChatGPT ads directly via Ads Manager across India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Advertisers outside the United States represent a growing share of revenue, and many of our largest clients now use ChatGPT Ads to reach potential customers across multiple markets. Our advertiser base is broadening as well. We began with a managed-sales, agency, and partner-led model. Since then, we have expanded our ecosystem to more than 50 technology and measurement partners.

The introduction of Ads Manager in May opened the platform to small and medium-sized businesses, which now represent a material share of the business. We’re excited to make advertising in ChatGPT more accessible to SMBs and startups, giving businesses of every size an opportunity to reach customers as they explore options and make decisions. At the same time, ChatGPT Ads has evolved into a more sophisticated advertising platform.

CPC and outcome-optimized bidding now account for the majority of campaigns, while Pixel and Conversions API have become important foundations for measurement and optimization. Capabilities such as product feeds, platform and geographic targeting, and custom audiences are helping advertisers reach the customers most relevant to their businesses. And these improvements are translating into real outcomes for both advertisers and partners.

Recent examples include an ecommerce advertiser achieving a 3x return on ad spend across its campaigns over 28 days, while a technology partner reported that more than 80% of ad-driven ChatGPT traffic is from new customers. Our focus remains on expanding access to AI while staying true to our principles.

As more people turn to ChatGPT to explore needs, evaluate options, and make decisions, we see an opportunity to help them discover products and services—and to help businesses of every size grow and thrive.

Why it matters

Advertising is one pillar of OpenAI’s diversified business model, alongside consumer subscriptions, enterprise offerings, and usage-based APIs. Together, these offerings give people, developers, and businesses choice in how they access OpenAI products, including an advertising-supported free tier that helps keep ChatGPT available to more than 1 billion weekly active users. People come to ChatGPT with clear goals.

They might be choosing software for their business, learning a new language, planning a renovation, looking for a job, or exploring a new hobby. They explain what they want to accomplish, what matters to them, and the constraints they face. ChatGPT can help them frame the decision, establish criteria, understand alternatives, and move closer to taking action. Discovery, consideration, and decision-making come together in a single experience.

ChatGPT Ads creates the possibility for marketers to contribute useful and relevant information to this experience. Our ads system uses the context of the current conversation to show an ad relevant to what someone is exploring. Depending on the country and a user’s settings, the ads system may also use context from the user’s broader ChatGPT experience.

This allows ads to reflect both what someone is asking about in the moment and, where enabled, their broader interests and preferences. Guided by OpenAI’s ads principles, we have been deliberate in how we build and expand our advertising platform. Protecting the trust people place in ChatGPT remains our North Star. Ads in ChatGPT are always clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT’s answers.

Advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides. Advertisers do not receive access to people’s private conversations, and users can control how their ad experience is personalized. Throughout the global rollout, the measures we track across trust, relevance, and overall experience have remained strong, giving us confidence to expand the platform while continuing to learn and improve.

ChatGPT Ads are now available in over 40 countries⁠(opens in a new window) through the OpenAI Ads Solutions team and our agency and technology partners. Starting later today, self-service access to ChatGPT Ads is launching across India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Our client base is becoming increasingly global.

What to watch

Our next phase of growth will bring ChatGPT Ads to more markets and introduce additional formats, objectives, buying options, and measurement capabilities. We will also explore new ways for businesses to interact with consumers in more native ways in ChatGPT.