ChatGPT Ads are clearly labelled sponsored placements below a ChatGPT response, delivered by a system separate from the chat model. They serve only to logged-in users on Free and Go tiers — Plus, Pro, Team, Enterprise and under-18 users see no ads at all.
The format
An ad appears below the assistant’s response, visually separated and labelled as sponsored. It does not appear within the answer, and advertisers cannot influence what the assistant says. The ad system and the chat model are separate systems.
There is currently one ad format. That is a meaningful constraint compared with mature channels offering search, display, video and lead-form variants, and it limits how much creative testing is possible.
Who actually sees ads
This is the single most consequential fact about the channel and the one most often omitted from vendor pitches.
| User group | Sees ads? |
|---|---|
| Logged-in Free tier | Yes |
| Go tier | Yes |
| Plus | No |
| Pro | No |
| Team, Enterprise, Business | No |
| Users known or predicted to be under 18 | No |
Free-tier users can also opt into an ads-free experience with reduced usage limits. For B2B this matters enormously: senior buyers at well-resourced companies are disproportionately likely to sit on paid tiers, which places a share of many ICPs structurally out of reach.
How targeting works
Delivery is decided by OpenAI’s ads system based on expected relevance and outcomes, using the context of the current conversation and, where the user has enabled ads personalisation, broader signals. Advertisers do not build audiences the way they would on LinkedIn.
There is no firmographic targeting — no company size, no industry, no job title. That is a real limitation for B2B, where those filters are usually the whole point. What you get instead is conversational context, which is high-intent but imprecise about who the person is.
What data advertisers receive
Very little, deliberately. Advertisers do not receive chat content, chat history, memories, names, email addresses, precise location or IP data.
This is a genuinely privacy-forward design and it cuts both ways. It means fewer compliance concerns to manage and fewer levers to pull. Anyone expecting the audience granularity of a mature social platform will find the channel opaque by comparison.
How to buy
Two routes. A beta self-serve Ads Manager lets advertisers sign up, create campaigns and bid on a CPC basis directly. Alternatively, agency partners including Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP, and technology partners such as Adobe, Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue and StackAdapt, provide access through tools many advertisers already use.
The self-serve route suits smaller test budgets. The partner route suits advertisers already operating at scale through those platforms and wanting consolidated buying.
Where it is available
Advertising in ChatGPT began testing in the United States in February 2026 and expanded through the year to further markets including the UK, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Brazil.
Because market availability has been changing steadily, verify current eligibility for your target geographies before planning rather than relying on any published list, including this one. This is a channel where a six-month-old article can be materially wrong.