Mumbai: OpenAI is bringing advertising to ChatGPT in India, opening up a new channel for brands to reach consumers as they use AI to research products, compare options and make purchase decisions. The move makes India one of the latest major markets to receive ChatGPT Ads as OpenAI looks to build advertising into its broader business model.
Starting August 27, ChatGPT users aged 18 and above on the Free and Go plans will begin seeing sponsored advertisements within conversations. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans will continue to use the service without ads.
The advertisements will appear below an AI-generated response when OpenAI determines that there is a relevant sponsored product or service. They will be clearly labelled as sponsored, while OpenAI maintains that advertising will remain separate from the answers generated by ChatGPT.
Ads will also be excluded from conversations involving sensitive or regulated subjects, including mental health and politics.
The India launch follows OpenAI’s advertising pilot in the US, which began in February 2026, and comes as major AI platforms increasingly explore advertising as a way to monetise their rapidly expanding user bases. Microsoft Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews have also introduced advertising formats, while Anthropic’s Claude remains a notable exception, with the company continuing to position its chatbot as ad-free.
OpenAI partners WPP and Omnicom for India launch
For its initial rollout in India, OpenAI has partnered with advertising groups WPP and Omnicom. More than 50 brands are expected to advertise on ChatGPT in the country this week, with OpenAI describing the agency partnerships as non-exclusive and indicating that it plans to work with additional agencies.
The company’s self-serve advertising platform is scheduled to become available to businesses on September 4. Companies of all sizes will be able to participate, with daily advertising budgets starting at Rs 725.
The proposition, according to OpenAI, is built around reaching consumers at a point when they are actively exploring a category or weighing their options.
Dave Dugan, Vice President and Head of Global Ads Solutions, OpenAI, said, “With ChatGPT Ads, businesses of every size can introduce themselves at relevant, high-context moments when decisions are beginning to take shape.”
“Our goal is to make those interactions useful, help marketers design for intelligent experiences, and preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable: independent answers, conversations that stay private from advertisers, and meaningful user control,” Dugan added.
OpenAI said advertising would also support its efforts to make its AI products accessible to a wider audience. The company positioned advertising revenue as a means of supporting its continued investment in free and affordable access to AI tools.
India emerges as a key market for ChatGPT
The advertising rollout comes at a significant point in ChatGPT’s growth in India. OpenAI says the country has more than 100 million weekly active users, making it one of its largest markets globally.
India was also among the first markets where OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Go, its Rs 399-a-month subscription tier. As part of a limited promotional offer, eligible Indian users were able to access the plan free of charge for one year.
The scale of ChatGPT’s Indian user base gives advertisers access to a large audience already using AI for information discovery, research and decision-making. For OpenAI, it also creates an opportunity to develop a commercial model around the conversational nature of the platform rather than relying exclusively on paid subscriptions.
User conversations to remain off-limits to advertisers
OpenAI has sought to draw a distinction between advertising on ChatGPT and conventional targeted advertising. The company said advertisers will not be given access to users’ conversations or personal information and that it will not sell user data.
Advertisers will not receive information such as an individual’s age, location or interests for targeting purposes. Instead, businesses will receive aggregated campaign-performance information, including metrics such as impressions and clicks, which can be used to assess and optimise campaigns.
The company has also said users will have control over their advertising experience. They will be able to dismiss advertisements, provide feedback and access information explaining why a particular ad was displayed.
There is, however, a personalisation component to the advertising system. ChatGPT allows users to ask the service to remember personal preferences, interests and other traits, and some personalisation information may be used in determining which ads are shown.
OpenAI said users can disable personalisation and clear the data used for advertising at any time.
The India rollout therefore marks a new phase for ChatGPT, placing advertising alongside subscriptions as a source of revenue while attempting to preserve the distinction between sponsored content and the AI’s answers. For advertisers, the appeal lies in reaching consumers during what OpenAI describes as “high-context” moments, while the company faces the larger challenge of ensuring that commercial interests do not undermine users’ trust in the chatbot’s responses.
