OpenAI will begin showing advertisements to ChatGPT users in India on the Free and lower-priced Go tiers. The company is starting with 50 brands and has partnered with advertising groups WPP and Omnicom as it expands a program already introduced in the United States and Europe.
A self-service ad manager is scheduled to launch next month. Marketers will be able to create campaigns with a minimum daily budget of ₹725, or about $7.60. OpenAI says the placements are intended to appear during relevant moments in a conversation, which makes transparency about sponsorship and separation from generated answers especially important.
India is one of ChatGPT’s largest markets, with more than 100 million weekly active users according to a figure OpenAI disclosed in February. Many use the free service or ChatGPT Go, which launched at under $5 and was temporarily offered free for a year. The expansion gives OpenAI another revenue source, but it also changes the experience for people who chose those tiers to avoid a higher subscription fee.