ChatGPT ads expand to 89 countries as OpenAI adds 26 new markets
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT Ads to 26 more countries including Argentina, Nigeria and Ukraine: ads appear only on Free and Go plans.
On 21 October 2026, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Ads is now available in 26 additional countries, bringing the total to 89 markets worldwide. The named additions include Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, alongside 15 further countries OpenAI has not individually identified. The expansion follows an earlier rollout across Southeast Asia and Taiwan in late September 2026, and an August milestone when the ads business hit a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate.
Who sees the ads, and who does not
The single most practical thing to understand about ChatGPT Ads is the plan boundary. Ads appear only for users on the Free and Go plans. If you pay for Plus, Pro, or an Enterprise subscription, you will not see any advertising. That boundary is not changing with this expansion.
For Free and Go users in the newly added countries, ads will start appearing inside ChatGPT conversations. They are clearly labelled and placed separately from ChatGPT’s answers. OpenAI is explicit that advertising does not influence what ChatGPT says. Advertisers do not receive access to the content of your conversations, and OpenAI does not sell your data to them.
The system uses the context of your current conversation to select a relevant ad. Depending on your country and settings, it may also draw on your broader ChatGPT history to personalise what you see. You can control that personalisation through your account settings.
What the ads actually look like
The standard format is a labelled unit that sits visually distinct from ChatGPT’s response. Think of it less like a search engine result and more like a sponsored card sitting alongside the answer, clearly marked so you know what it is.
OpenAI is also testing a format called Sponsored Agents. After seeing a relevant ad, a user can choose to open a conversation with a business-sponsored agent inside ChatGPT. That conversation is separate from the original chat and from ChatGPT’s independent answers. It lets businesses field questions in a conversational way before linking to their own website. This feature is still in testing and is not part of the standard rollout in these 26 countries.
A separate visual ad format, placing image-based ads inside ChatGPT’s image-generation feature, was announced on 5 October 2026, but that trial is limited to the United States for now.
What this means if you are a business owner or marketer
If you run a business in Argentina, Nigeria, South Africa, Ukraine, or any of the other newly added markets, you can now reach people while they are actively exploring topics, comparing options, or making decisions in ChatGPT. Access is available either through self-service in OpenAI’s Ads Manager or through technology partners, so you do not need a direct relationship with OpenAI’s sales team to get started.
The pricing structure is worth noting. Clicks cost roughly $5, compared with $30 to $50 for comparable commercial software ads on Google. Campaigns can be bought on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis, or optimised for conversions, through a second-price auction. OpenAI has also announced integrations with HubSpot as its first CRM partner and Shopify as its first e-commerce partner, which means you may be able to manage ChatGPT Ads from tools you already use.
More than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns since ChatGPT Ads launched in February 2026. The audience is not small: OpenAI reports that more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week.
The bigger picture for OpenAI
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Ads in the United States on 9 February 2026, targeting adults on Free and Go plans. Eight months later, the product spans 89 countries and reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate by August 2026. That growth rate is notable, though OpenAI is reported to be tracking below the $2.4 billion advertising revenue it had projected to investors for the full year.
The advertising business sits alongside consumer subscriptions, enterprise contracts, and usage-based APIs as one of several revenue streams OpenAI is building as it approaches a widely anticipated IPO. The company has said it will continue developing new ad formats, buying options, and measurement capabilities, so the product is not finished.
The competitive framing is interesting too. Anthropic, OpenAI’s closest direct rival, has pledged to keep Claude ad-free and built its first Super Bowl campaign around that distinction. OpenAI’s position is that advertising, done with appropriate transparency and data protections, allows it to keep a capable free tier available to more people globally.
A note on the 26 countries
OpenAI names only 11 of the 26 additions in its announcement: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The remaining 15 are not listed anywhere in the post. If you are in a market not on that list and want to know whether it is included, the most reliable check is to open ChatGPT on a Free or Go account and see whether ads appear, or to consult the Ads Manager help documentation directly.
The 89-country figure covers standard ChatGPT Ads. The visual advertising trial in the image-generation feature remains a US-only test at this stage and is counted separately.