ChatGPT Ads rolls out across Southeast Asia and Taiwan
ChatGPT Ads is opening in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, taking OpenAI's ad platform past 60 countries.
OpenAI began rolling out ChatGPT Ads in seven more markets on 23 September, opening the platform to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. The expansion carries the company's advertising business past 60 countries, following earlier Asia Pacific launches in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and India.
Who can buy, and how
Advertisers reach ChatGPT Ads through OpenAI's Ads Solutions team, through agency partners including dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe and WPP, and through technology partners. Smaller businesses on the eligible list can buy self-service through Ads Manager rather than going through a sales team.
Free and Go see the ads, paid plans do not
The commercial shape of the product has not changed with the geography. Ads appear only to people on the free and Go tiers, while Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions stay ad-free. OpenAI says conversations remain private from advertisers and that customer data is never sold; ads are labelled and kept separate from answers, advertising does not influence what ChatGPT answers, and users keep control over ad personalisation.
A billion-dollar run rate, then more markets
OpenAI said at the end of August that ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate less than 200 days after launch, with tens of thousands of advertisers already buying. Dave Dugan, the company's vice president and head of global ads solutions, cast the Asian rollout as the next step in that build-out: "We're at the beginning of a new chapter for advertising, with AI creating new ways for businesses and people to connect. Our expansion into more markets across Asia brings that opportunity to businesses of every size, from global brands looking for new ways to grow to entrepreneurs and startups running their first campaign."
Shopee, the Southeast Asian e-commerce group, is named in the release as a partner already advertising in the region. Its executive director for brand and growth marketing, Peggy Zhu, said the company is extending a collaboration that began with the Brazilian launch: "Across our markets, we are expanding access to AI-powered tools that help buyers discover what they need and enable sellers to reach and serve customers more effectively."
More markets are coming, and so is more machinery around them. OpenAI says the next few months will bring further expansion, new ad formats, optimisation tools and measurement products, which is the part advertisers in newly opened markets will be watching most closely.
Our opinion
The interesting number in this announcement is not the seven countries. It is that ads run on the free and Go tiers while Plus, Pro and Enterprise are kept clean, which means the people funding ChatGPT's ad business are precisely the people least able to pay for the alternative. OpenAI frames that as democratising access, and it is not wrong: a free tier sustained by advertising is a real trade rather than a giveaway. But the company is asking advertisers across seven new markets to trust a pitch built on context and intent, and the measurement tools that would prove any of it are still on the roadmap. A $1 billion run rate in under 200 days buys a lot of patience, and the Shopee quote shows the partner stack is real. What has not been tested yet is whether the ad load stays where it is when the growth curve flattens.