OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Ads has reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days after launch (OpenAI News). The platform is used by tens of thousands of advertisers and is now available in over 40 countries. Starting immediately, self-service access through Ads Manager is expanding to India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa (OpenAI News).
For commerce practitioners, ChatGPT Ads represents a novel channel for reaching customers at a critical decision-making moment. The platform leverages conversation context to show relevant ads while keeping them clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT's responses, ensuring advertising does not influence the AI's answers (OpenAI News). Recent performance metrics show tangible ROI: one ecommerce advertiser achieved a 3x return on ad spend over 28 days, while a technology partner reported that over 80% of ad-driven ChatGPT traffic came from new customers (OpenAI News). The introduction of self-service Ads Manager in May opened the platform to small and medium-sized businesses, which now represent a material share of revenue (OpenAI News).
OpenAI plans to expand ChatGPT Ads to additional markets and introduce new formats, objectives, buying options, and measurement capabilities. The platform now supports sophisticated targeting via product feeds, geographic and platform filters, and custom audiences, alongside outcome-optimized bidding and pixel-based conversion tracking (OpenAI News).