OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads to 31 more European countries

[Amber90]

OpenAI announced it's expanding ChatGPT ads to 31 European countries including Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, its biggest ad rollout yet and six months after first testing ads with US users. The ads will only appear for people on the free tier or the cheaper Go plan, with Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers staying completely ad free. OpenAI says the expansion brings ChatGPT ads to 35 countries total, and reports that its ad revenue has already risen more than 25 percent since the start of August

For now advertisers access ChatGPT Ads through OpenAI's own sales team, agency partners or technology partners rather than a fully self service platform, though OpenAI says self service access through its Ads Manager is coming later this summer. The company frames the ads as a way to fund cheap or free access to its tools, arguing conversational intent, people describing exactly what they're trying to accomplish, makes ChatGPT a genuinely more valuable place to advertise than a traditional search engine. OpenAI maintains that conversations stay private from advertisers and that ads don't influence the actual answers ChatGPT gives

This marks a real reversal from CEO Sam Altman's earlier stated position that ads in ChatGPT would only be a last resort. Curious how people feel about ads showing up specifically in an AI assistant's answers compared to a traditional search engine or social feed

Expanding Access To Ai With Chatgpt Adsopenai.com

[LegendaryOliver16]

The reversal on Altman's own previous last resort framing is honestly the most telling detail in this whole announcement. Companies always say that until the actual revenue pressure becomes too strong to ignore. Predictable trajectory that basically every ad supported product eventually follows

[VoidWalker63]

Conversational intent being pitched as more valuable than search intent for advertisers is a genuinely interesting argument, and honestly probably true given how much more specific a chat request usually is compared to a vague search query.

Worries me a little that it also means ads could get uncomfortably well targeted based on genuinely personal seeming conversations though. Precision cuts both ways here

[Jacob]

Free and Go tier only feels like a genuinely reasonable compromise honestly, letting paying subscribers avoid ads entirely while still monetizing the much larger free user base somehow. Standard freemium logic applied to a chatbot specifically. Not thrilled about it but understand the business reasoning behind it

[TrueRoss42]

Trusting that ads genuinely don't influence ChatGPT's actual answers requires a real leap of faith given how opaque these systems already are to outside verification. Nice stated policy, but there's no easy way for an average user to actually confirm that claim independently. Would love to see some kind of external audit eventually