ChatGPT Ads Expands to Seven More Asian Markets
ChatGPT Ads went live across seven more Asian markets on 23 September 2026, and the platform is now available in more than 60 countries. OpenAI confirmed the rollout covers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. Ads appear only to people on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions stay ad-free.
ChatGPT Ads is OpenAI's advertising product: paid placements shown inside ChatGPT conversations, sold through a self-service Ads Manager, agency partners and OpenAI's own sales team.
What OpenAI announced on 23 September 2026
OpenAI published the news in a ChatGPT Ads expansion announcement dated 23 September 2026. The seven new markets follow earlier Asia Pacific launches in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and India.
That sequencing matters. OpenAI has moved from mature, high-CPM Asia Pacific markets into high-volume, mobile-first ones inside a single year. Shopee, which already worked with OpenAI after the ChatGPT Ads launch in Brazil, is extending that collaboration into Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
Peggy Zhu, Executive Director of Brand and Growth Marketing at Shopee, described it as "another step in our deepening partnership with OpenAI".
Who can buy ads on ChatGPT, and how
OpenAI lists three routes to buy. Each suits a different size of advertiser.
ChatGPT Ads Manager (self-service)
Eligible businesses can buy directly through ChatGPT Ads Manager at ads.openai.com. OpenAI maintains a live list of Ads Manager country availability, which is the file to check before you plan spend. Eligibility is not universal, so verify your market and account status first.
The ChatGPT Ads agency route
OpenAI named five agency partners: dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe and WPP. If your media buying already sits with one of those groups, the ChatGPT Ads agency path is the shortest route to inventory in the new markets. Technology partners and OpenAI's own Ads Solutions team are the other two options.
Which users actually see ads in ChatGPT
The plan split defines your reachable audience. It is the single most important number nobody has published.
| ChatGPT plan | Sees ads? |
|---|---|
| Free | Yes |
| Go | Yes |
| Plus | No |
| Pro | No |
| Enterprise | No |
Free and Go skew towards consumer and small business users. If your buyers sit in enterprise IT, legal or finance, a meaningful share of them are on paid, ad-free tiers. Plan accordingly.
What the $1 billion run rate tells you
At the end of August 2026, OpenAI said in its ChatGPT Ads access announcement that the product had reached $1 billion in annualised revenue run rate in less than 200 days after launch. Tens of thousands of advertisers are now running campaigns, many across multiple countries.
Read that figure carefully. An annualised run rate is a projection from a recent period, not money booked over twelve months. It still signals real demand, and it explains the pace of the market rollout.
My read is that the Southeast Asia and Taiwan launch is a supply decision, not a demand one. OpenAI has more advertiser appetite than inventory, and the fastest way to add impressions is to add countries where free-tier usage is large.
The trust rules OpenAI has set around OpenAI ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI's approach to advertising and expanding access sets four constraints that shape what you can and cannot do.
- Conversations stay private: OpenAI keeps conversations private from advertisers and says it never sells customer data.
- Clear labelling: the ads ChatGPT shows are always clearly labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT's answers.
- No influence on answers: OpenAI states that advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.
- User control: people can control ad personalisation, and paid plans remain ad-free for those who want no ads at all.
The third point is the one to brief your board on. Buying media does not buy you into the answer. Organic presence in AI answers is a separate discipline, which is why we treat brand visibility in AI search as its own workstream.
The counter-view: reasons to wait
There is a case for holding off. OpenAI says it will "build new formats, optimization tools, and measurement solutions" over the next few months, which is a plain admission that measurement is immature today.
OpenAI has not published impression volumes, pricing, format specifications or attribution methodology in this announcement. Dave Dugan, Vice President and Head of Global Ads Solutions at OpenAI, called this "the beginning of a new chapter for advertising". Beginnings are where costs per learning are highest.
What to do about ChatGPT Ads in 2026
- Check the Ads Manager availability page for each market you operate in, and confirm account eligibility before you build a plan.
- Ask your agency group whether it is one of the five named partners, and what inventory access it actually holds today.
- Estimate what share of your audience sits on Free or Go rather than Plus, Pro or Enterprise. That is your ceiling.
- Ring-fence a test budget in one Southeast Asian market rather than spreading thin across all seven.
- Keep paid and organic separate in reporting. ChatGPT paid ads will not move your citation rate in answers.
Track this alongside the rest of OpenAI's product cadence, including the Dots agent launch, because the same free-tier audience is being built for both. ChatGPT Ads has gone from launch to 60-plus countries in under a year, and the markets added on 23 September 2026 will not be the last.
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