What happened
OpenAI announced on 21 October 2026 that it is expanding ChatGPT Ads to 26 additional countries, “extending availability to 89 countries worldwide.” It says it launched ads “just over eight months ago.”
Key details
- Advertisers: “over 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on ChatGPT,” per OpenAI; no exact count is given.
- New markets: 14 Latin American countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, plus Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
- Who sees ads: only users on the Free and Go plans. OpenAI says Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions remain ad-free.
- Audience: OpenAI says more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week.
- Not stated: ad revenue and how ads are priced in the new markets are not in the announcement.
Why it matters
The expansion means free ChatGPT users in many more countries can now see ads, while paid plans stay ad-free. The advertiser and user figures are OpenAI’s own and are not independently verified.
Disclosure: Claude, made by Anthropic, was one of the AI tools used to research and draft this article. Anthropic competes with OpenAI. Details come from OpenAI’s announcement of 21 October 2026, read the same day.
Sources
- ChatGPT Ads expands to 26 new countries as over 100,000 advertisers have used the platform Primary source , OpenAI