ChatGPT Ads Reach 89 Countries as OpenAI Says More Than 100,000 Advertisers Have Run Campaigns

OpenAI extended ChatGPT advertising to 26 more countries on Wednesday, October 21, bringing the total to 89, and said more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns since ads launched just over eight months ago. Reuters reported the figures from OpenAI's announcement.

Ads appear only on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions stay ad-free, according to both Reuters and The Next Web.

Where the ads are going

The expansion adds 14 Latin American countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. It follows earlier launches in Mexico and Brazil, Reuters reported. The other new markets named include Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Advertisers can reach the new markets through technology partners or through self-service access in Ads Manager. OpenAI said ads reached 31 European countries in August, according to The Next Web.

Plan	Shows ads
Free	Yes
Go	Yes
Plus	No
Pro	No
Enterprise	No

The numbers behind the claim

The Next Web cited The Information's Alix Coutures as reporting about 20,000 advertisers in late August. The 100,000 figure is OpenAI's, and it counts advertisers that have run campaigns over the full eight months. The two numbers may not measure the same thing, so a five-fold rise in two months is not established.

1. Late August (The Information)20K advertisers
2. October 21 (OpenAI, run campaigns)100K advertisers

Source: The Information via The Next Web (about 20,000); OpenAI via Reuters (more than 100,000), accessed 2026-10-24

Revenue is the other number. OpenAI said in August that its ads business had reached an annualised run rate of $1 billion, Reuters reported. The Next Web, citing CNBC's Ashley Capoot, said the figure was $100 million in March.

What is missing

Neither report gave a ChatGPT user count for the new countries, per-market pricing or an ad load per conversation. No OpenAI executive is quoted in either. Reuters said the company is building its ad business to raise revenue ahead of a possible listing, and The Next Web, citing CNBC, said executives have signalled 2027.

OpenAI said ads are clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT's answers, that they do not influence responses and that conversations stay private from advertisers, The Next Web reported. The Terminal could not open OpenAI's post and has not read those statements in the original.

Anthropic made OpenAI's ads the subject of its first Super Bowl campaign in February and has pledged to keep Claude ad-free, The Next Web reported. The ad push sits beside OpenAI's GPT-6 models reaching Google Cloud and its decision to move frontier training offline.

OpenAI began testing Sponsored Agents with some US advertisers in September. The company said more ad formats, buying options and measurement tools are planned, but gave no dates.