ChatGPT Ads: How They Work and Who Can Advertise

Companies can now advertise in ChatGPT through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager. Self-serve access is open in many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Türkiye. The ads appear below the answer with a "sponsored" label and do not influence what ChatGPT answers. This article explains how the ads work, who can place them and how paid visibility differs from organic visibility.

When did ChatGPT ads start?

OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT in the United States on February 9, 2026. On August 18, 2026, OpenAI announced that from August 24, ads would come to 31 European markets, including Germany, France and Austria.

Today, OpenAI's Help Center lists the countries where companies can use the self-serve Ads Manager. The United States, the United Kingdom and Türkiye are among them.

Where do the ads appear and what do they look like?

Ads are shown below ChatGPT's answer, labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the answer. Users on the Free plan and the Go plan can see ads.

One distinction matters here. If companies in a country can access the Ads Manager, that does not mean every user in that country sees ads right away. Ad delivery may be switched on step by step.

Do ads influence ChatGPT's answers?

No. According to OpenAI, ads are kept separate from the answer and have no influence on it. An advertiser cannot buy or change what ChatGPT says.

Privacy has a clear rule as well: users' conversations are not shared with advertisers. Advertisers only see aggregated data such as impressions and clicks.

Who can advertise?

For the self-serve Ads Manager, the company that places the ads and is billed for them must be based in one of the countries on OpenAI's list. Accounts are opened at ads.openai.com. Advertisers with large budgets can also talk to OpenAI's ads team directly.

Three things to do before your first campaign

1. Set up tracking. Conversions are measured with the OpenAI Pixel, the Conversions API, or both. A campaign's objective cannot be changed once it has been created, so your measurement plan needs to be ready from the start.
2. Prepare the landing page. Someone using ChatGPT has usually described their question in detail. When they arrive from an ad, they should find a clear answer to that same question.
3. Check whether AI systems can read your website. Sites whose content only loads through JavaScript, or that have no structured data, have a hard time appearing in organic answers.

Ads or organic visibility?

ChatGPT now has two separate channels for visibility:

• Ads: You are visible for as long as you pay. When the payments stop, so does the visibility.
• Organic answers: ChatGPT recommends you, or leaves you out, based on what it can read on your website. Work in this area builds up over time, independent of your budget.

Google has worked this way for years: ads at the top, organic results below. The two channels complement each other.

What does this mean for B2B companies?

B2B buyers research for a long time before they decide, and part of that research now happens in ChatGPT. Because the channel is still new, companies that start early can test with a small budget and gain experience. The most solid approach is to plan ads and organic visibility together.

Before you start

Before you start with ChatGPT ads, find out how AI systems read your website: Free SEO & GEO Check. What we handle for you, from account setup to reporting, is described on our ChatGPT Ads Management page.