OpenAI's advertising business has reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate just 200 days after the company began testing ads inside ChatGPT, the company said Monday, as it simultaneously pushed the ad format into more than 30 new countries including India.
The pilot began quietly in the United States in February, crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks, according to OpenAI, and has since expanded through Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea before this week's rapid five-day push into 32 additional markets. Advertisers in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa can now buy ChatGPT ads directly through OpenAI's self-service Ads Manager, the same tool already used by tens of thousands of advertisers elsewhere.
Ads only on free and low-cost tiers
Ads appear only to logged-in adults on ChatGPT's free tier and its lower-priced Go plan, which costs roughly $8 a month in the U.S. and the equivalent of about $5 in India; subscribers on paid Plus and higher tiers do not see them. OpenAI has said the ads are kept visually separate from chat responses and that advertisers cannot access users' chat history, memories or other personal details, and that it does not sell user data. In India, the rollout launched with roughly 50 brand partnerships arranged through ad agencies WPP and Omnicom.
Small and medium-sized businesses now make up what OpenAI describes as a "material share" of ad revenue, a shift from the early pilot weeks when roughly 600 advertisers were testing the format. Dave Dugan, OpenAI's vice president of global ad solutions, described the international expansion as "a new chapter for advertising," pointing to the scale of ChatGPT's roughly 1 billion weekly active users as the underlying opportunity for marketers.
Falling short of an ambitious target
Even at $1 billion annualized, the ad business is tracking well behind the $2.5 billion in 2026 ad revenue OpenAI had projected earlier this year, underscoring how difficult it has been to convert ChatGPT's enormous user base into advertising dollars at the pace the company hoped. Total company revenue, driven mainly by subscriptions and enterprise API sales, is tracking toward an annualized figure near $40 billion, meaning advertising still represents a small fraction of OpenAI's overall business even after Monday's milestone.
The advertising push also sets OpenAI apart from Anthropic, which has positioned its Claude chatbot as ad-free and marketed that distinction directly to users wary of AI companies monetizing their conversations. OpenAI has confidentially filed paperwork for an eventual initial public offering, people familiar with the matter have said, with a public listing expected as soon as 2027 — a timeline that gives the company added incentive to diversify revenue beyond subscriptions before it faces public markets scrutiny.
With ads now live in more than 40 countries, OpenAI's next test will be whether it can narrow the gap to its own revenue targets without eroding the trust of a user base that, until this year, had never seen a sponsored result in ChatGPT.