OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT Ads In India, Its Second-Largest Market

OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT Ads to India, one of its largest markets, as the artificial intelligence company steps up efforts to diversify revenue ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO).

Under the rollout, ChatGPT will show ads to logged-in adults on the Free and Go tiers, the latter priced at ₹399 per month in India. Users may see a sponsored product or service related to their conversation at the bottom of a response. OpenAI said these ads will be clearly labelled and visually separated from ChatGPT's answers. Users on the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education tiers will remain ad-free.

OpenAI has partnered with WPP and Omnicom as its first advertising agency partners in India, citing their experience in strategy, creative work, measurement and brand safety. The company said more agencies would be added over time. More than 50 brands are expected to go live with ads on ChatGPT in India this week, OpenAI said. A self-serve ChatGPT Ads Manager will also be made available in India from September 4, allowing businesses to run campaigns with daily budgets starting at ₹725.

India is OpenAI's second-largest market, with more than 100 million weekly users as of February this year, spanning students, developers, educators and enterprises. Globally, ChatGPT crossed 1 billion weekly users earlier this month.

Dave Dugan, OpenAI's vice president and head of global ads solutions, said, "India is one of the most dynamic markets in the world for how people use ChatGPT to learn, build, and discover. Our weekly active users have doubled year-on-year, with many of them going beyond simple searches and changing how they make decisions."

Privacy And Safety Measures

OpenAI said ChatGPT's responses will not be influenced by ads and will continue to be optimised for user relevance. The company said advertisers will not have access to users' chats, chat history, memories or personal details, and that it does not sell user data to advertisers. Advertisers will instead receive aggregate performance data, such as impressions and clicks.

Ads will not be shown to accounts where users have indicated they are under 18, or where OpenAI determines the user is a minor. Ads will also not appear alongside sensitive topics such as health, mental health or politics.

OpenAI first announced plans to test ads within ChatGPT in January. The pilot began in the United States in February and crossed $100 million in annualised revenue within six weeks. It has since expanded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea, and last week to 31 European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

In June, OpenAI said it had confidentially filed for an IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, following a similar filing by Anthropic. According to a Wall Street Journal report, OpenAI's revenue rose to $6.7 billion in the June quarter from $5.7 billion in the previous quarter, while its operating loss widened to $12.3 billion from $9.3 billion over the same period.