ChatGPT Ads Have Arrived: How They Work and What Changes

Ads on ChatGPT are now live in Greece too. Since 24 August 2026 OpenAI has been showing them in 31 European markets, including all 27 EU countries, and since 31 August 2026 any business can open its own account in the self-serve OpenAI Ads Manager (ads.openai.com), with no minimum budget and no need to go through an agency.

Ads only appear to users on the free plan (Free) and on the low-cost ChatGPT Go plan. With a Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu subscription you carry on without ads, and the same applies to users under 18. If you want to see how a campaign is set up in practice, take a look at our ChatGPT advertising service.

Why Is OpenAI Running Ads?

The answer is simple: running something as big as ChatGPT costs a fortune. Hosting, development, upgrades, processing millions of questions every day… it all adds up.

Until last year, OpenAI made its money mainly from subscriptions and partnerships, such as the one with Microsoft. The bet on advertising paid off quickly: in August 2026, less than 200 days after launch, the company announced that its advertising business had reached an annualised revenue run rate of $1 billion.

Here is a short video with the key facts about OpenAI’s ads

What Do ChatGPT Ads Look Like?

If you are picturing banners, pop-ups and the usual annoying ads, think again. OpenAI appears to want something smarter and more discreet.

• They appear as a sponsored card below the answer, with a title, a short description, a square image and a link.
• They always carry a clear “Sponsored” label and are kept separate from the answer.
• Targeting is based on the context of the conversation, without the keywords you would use on Google.
• On sensitive topics, such as health or politics, no ads appear at all.

In other words, the ad sits next to the answer and stays outside it. It is low-key and clearly labelled as paid content.

Does This Change the User Experience?

No. OpenAI has made it clear that advertisers don’t pay to change the answer you get. ChatGPT gives its answer, and the ad is a separate suggestion underneath.

For example, if you ask “where can I buy hiking boots” and the platform shows you a list of links, one of which is sponsored, the answer itself doesn’t get any worse. It simply means a brand that paid to be there may also appear. Just as it happens on Google.

Your conversations are not handed over to advertisers. In Europe, targeting has in fact started out more conservatively than in the US: only the topic of the current conversation, approximate location, device, language and time of day are used. Personalisation based on your history requires explicit consent.

What matters is transparency, and OpenAI seems well aware of that. “Sponsored” links will be clearly marked as such and won’t try to confuse the user.

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

This is where it gets interesting. If you already advertise on Google or social media, you now have one more channel at your disposal, and in Greece very few advertisers are bidding on it yet. ChatGPT has more than 1 billion weekly users and, according to OpenAI, around 20% of queries have commercial intent.

Imagine someone asking “what’s the best natural shampoo for dry hair” and your brand showing up among the suggestions, because you have invested in an ad that matches the context of the conversation.

It is a huge new opportunity. Instead of searching on Google, the customer will ask ChatGPT “what’s the best laptop?”, and that is where your suggestion or ad can appear. It is more targeted and more direct.

This goes well beyond another display ad. And for anyone who measures results, there is now proper tracking: OpenAI has its own pixel, a Conversions API for server-side tracking and integrations with third-party measurement tools, so you can see what the campaign actually delivered as well as how many people clicked.

Is This the “New Google Ads”?

Not quite, though the gap has narrowed a lot in just a few months. There is now an official self-serve tool, a campaign / ad group / ad structure, an auction, CPM or CPC billing, conversion optimisation, geo-targeting and custom audiences. The real difference lies in how targeting works: ChatGPT uses the context of the whole conversation instead of keywords.

There are limits you should know about before you commit a budget, though. The formats are deliberately simple: a title, some text and one image, with no video or rich media. And early data shows a noticeably lower CTR than Google Search, which makes sense in an environment where users usually carry on the conversation instead of leaving with a click. So the right measure of success here is what happens after the click.

What Should I Do Now?

There is no longer any reason to “keep an eye on developments”: the channel is open. Four things make sense right now: an Ads Manager account and verification of your business, installing the pixel so you measure from day one, a landing page that can handle the traffic, and a small test budget with a clear cap.

Most important of all is the part you can’t buy: make sure your content is useful, clear and well structured. AI “reads” the internet differently, so paid visibility performs far better when it builds on an organic presence in AI engines. If you want the two to work together, see what our ChatGPT advertising service and our GEO services include, or start with Google Adsif you haven’t covered the basics there yet.

Frequently Asked Questions

ChatGPT now has ads, in Greece too. That is good news: it is a new opportunity, with the advantage that competition in the auction is still low.