27 August,2026 11:41 AM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondent
Representational Image. File pic.
Ahead of its planned initial public offering (IPO), San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company OpenAI on Thursday said it will roll out advertisements on ChatGPT in India, according to news agency IANS.
India is one of the largest markets for the generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform, and the company aims to monetise this through the ads.
ChatGPT crossed the 1 billion weekly global user mark earlier this month. India remains its second-largest market with over 100 million weekly users across students, developers, educators, and enterprises as of February 2026.
The sponsored products or services featured in the advertisements (ads) will appear at the bottom of ChatGPT responses, which would be clearly labelled and visually separate from ChatGPT's answers, the company said.
The rollout will show ads to logged in adults on the Free and Go tiers, the latter priced at Rs 399 per month in India, while paid subscribers on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education tiers will continue to enjoy ad free service, as per IANS.
The AI company expects over 50 brands to go live with ads this week. Besides, it plans to offer self-serve access to ChatGPT Ads Manager in India from September 4, and businesses could sign up for daily budgets starting at Rs 725.
However, the company clarified that the ad features will not be extended to accounts where the user has indicated they are under 18, or where the company determines that the user is a minor. Moreover, in case of sensitive or regulated topics such as health, mental health, or politics the ads will not appear alongside the responses.
Assuring customers on data privacy, the firm said users' chats, chat history, memories, or personal details are inaccessible to advertisers and that it does not sell user data to advertisers. Advertisers will instead receive aggregate campaign-performance information, such as impressions and clicks, as per IANS.
OpenAI first announced plans to start testing ads within ChatGPT in January 2026, to diversify its revenue streams and drive expansion.
The pilot commenced in the United States in February and it has crossed the USD 100 million annualised revenue mark within six weeks of launch. The company then expanded it to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea. OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Ads across 31 European countries last week, including Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
(With inputs from IANS)
