OpenAI has started rolling out ads in ChatGPT in India, bringing its advertising business to one of the chatbot’s largest and most active markets. The ads will appear for logged-in adults using the Free and Go tiers, while ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education users will continue to get an ad-free experience.
The rollout gives OpenAI a new way to monetize ChatGPT’s growing user base while keeping its free and lower-cost plans available. OpenAI says its weekly active users in India have doubled year-on-year, with people increasingly using ChatGPT to research products, compare options and make decisions rather than simply asking questions.
Ads will appear below a ChatGPT response when there is a relevant sponsored product or service. They will be clearly marked as sponsored and kept visually separate from ChatGPT’s answer. OpenAI says the advertising will not influence the answers generated by ChatGPT. Ads will also not be eligible to appear alongside sensitive or regulated topics such as mental health and politics. Accounts belonging to people who identify themselves, or are predicted, to be under 18 will not receive ads.
OpenAI is also drawing a line between advertising and users’ conversations. The company says advertisers will not have access to chats, chat history, memories or personal details. Instead, advertisers will receive aggregate campaign information such as impressions and clicks. Users will also be able to dismiss ads, provide feedback, see why an ad was shown, manage advertising personalization and clear the data used for advertising.
The advertising platform is launching with more than 50 brands expected to go live in India this week. WPP and Omnicom are OpenAI’s first agency partners in the country, supporting advertisers with campaign strategy, creative work, measurement and execution. OpenAI says the partnerships are non-exclusive and that it will continue working with other agencies.
Smaller businesses will also be able to buy ads directly at ads.openai.com. OpenAI plans to open self-serve access to its ChatGPT Ads Manager in India on September 4, with daily budgets starting at ₹725. This will allow businesses to create campaigns without having to work through one of the agency partners.
The India launch comes several months after OpenAI began testing ads in the US in February. The company has since expanded the program to additional markets, including the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and 31 European countries. OpenAI says the goal is to use advertising to support broader access to capable AI through free and lower-cost ChatGPT plans.
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