In less than 200 days, advertising within ChatGPT has grown into a business that, at its current monthly pace, is worth $1 billion annually. OpenAI announced the result as ChatGPT Ads entered a new stage of development, with direct ad buying becoming available across dozens of new markets.
The figure is an annualized projection, not $1 billion in revenue that has already been collected. The current monthly revenue of approximately $83 million has been calculated over a 12-month period, showing how much the advertising business has grown since launching less than seven months ago. The platform is already used by tens of thousands of advertisers.
The most important change for the European market comes with the opening of Ads Manager. Companies in Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa can now independently create, purchase and manage campaigns within ChatGPT, without having to go through a sales team, agency or technology partner. Those channels remain part of the offering, but they are no longer the only route to the platform.
The introduction of Ads Manager in the United States in May has already changed the composition of the client base. Small and medium-sized businesses now account for a significant share of the advertising business, while revenue from advertisers outside the US continues to grow. The platform’s ecosystem has meanwhile expanded to include more than 50 technology and measurement partners, and ads are available in more than 40 countries.
For the advertising industry, where the message appears could prove more important than geography itself. Users often enter a conversation with ChatGPT with a specific intention, from choosing business software and looking for a job to planning a trip or making a purchase. An ad can therefore enter the process while users are establishing criteria and comparing options, before they reach a traditional search engine or online store.
The system currently uses the content of the active conversation to select a relevant ad. Depending on the market and the user’s settings, it may also consider the broader context of how ChatGPT is used. OpenAI states that ads are clearly labeled and separated from answers, that they do not influence their content and that advertisers do not have access to users’ private conversations.
At the same time, the platform is acquiring the features of a more developed performance ecosystem. CPC models and outcome-optimized bidding now account for the majority of campaigns, while measurement relies on Pixel and Conversions API. Advertisers also have access to product feeds, geographic and platform targeting, and custom audiences.
The results are not yet equally convincing for everyone. OpenAI cites an ecommerce advertiser that achieved a threefold return on investment over 28 days, as well as a technology partner whose data show that more than 80 percent of ad-generated traffic comes from new customers. On the other hand, some analyses and agency experiences point to lower click-through rates, a mismatch between ads and user intent, and discrepancies between data recorded in Ads Manager and visits registered by analytics tools.
The first billion dollars in annualized revenue run rate therefore confirms that advertiser interest exists, but it does not yet provide a definitive answer about the effectiveness of the new channel. With self-service buying opening across a large number of markets, ChatGPT Ads is entering a phase in which access will cease to be the main obstacle, while targeting quality, measurement and actual business results will become more important criteria for assessing its value.
