ChatGPT Ads finally leave the US: UK, Japan, Korea, Brazil and Mexico next

OpenAI announced on May 7, 2026 that it will extend its ChatGPT advertising pilot to five new countries in the coming weeks: the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico. The disclosure came not in a press release but in a LinkedIn post from Benji Shomair, the company's recently appointed VP of Monetization, who confirmed that the pilot will remain restricted to free and Go subscription tiers while Plus, Pro and Enterprise users continue to see no advertisements.

"More updates on ChatGPT ads - in the coming weeks, we'll be expanding our ads pilot to the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico," Shomair wrote. "Again, ads are only being tested in free and Go subscriptions. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions will not have any ads."

The post reiterated the framing OpenAI has consistently used since the pilot's inception. "These explorations continue to be guided by our ads principles. Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled," Shomair added. A sign-up link for businesses interested in advertising in the new markets was provided in the comments under the post.

The announcement carries weight beyond the geographic list. It marks the second wave of international expansion for a pilot that did not exist as a commercial product six months ago, and it is the first push into markets where English is not the primary language of either users or the broader regulatory environment. Until now, the pilot had operated in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The first three of those countries joined on March 26, 2026, on the same day OpenAI disclosed the pilot had crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks of formally launching on February 9.

The geography is a measurement decision

The country selection is not random. The United Kingdom and Japan both have mature digital advertising verification infrastructures, deep agency talent pools, and established programmatic measurement chains. South Korea is the third-largest digital ad market in Asia. Brazil and Mexico together represent the bulk of Latin American digital spend, with rapidly growing penetration. One commenter on Shomair's LinkedIn post noted that "the geo sequence reads like a measurement-infrastructure decision more than a reach one," adding that the UK and Japan have functional verification stacks while Brazil, Mexico and Korea trail in that respect.

That observation aligns with the operational state of the pilot. OpenAI opened its self-serve Ads Manager to all US businesses on May 5, 2026, introducing cost-per-click bidding alongside the existing cost-per-mille model and confirming the recent launch of a Conversions API and pixel-based measurement tools. The Conversions API is the kind of infrastructure international advertisers tend to require before reallocating budget. Until the May 5 release, the platform had operated without attribution mechanics that performance buyers consider standard.

Conspicuously absent from the new country list is continental Europe. There are no roles in Paris, Amsterdam or Berlin on OpenAI's current careers page either, as PPC Land reported in coverage of the company's international hiring footprinton May 7. OpenAI lists 19 open positions tied directly to its ads business across San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Sao Paulo. The geography of those job postings maps almost exactly to the announced expansion countries, with one obvious exception: Mexico does not have a dedicated office role, suggesting that the country may be served through the Sao Paulo regional structure.

The absence of continental Europe is unlikely to be an oversight. Regulatory complexity in the European Union under the General Data Protection Regulation, the Digital Markets Act, and the EU AI Act has slowed advertising rollouts from multiple US platforms. OpenAI's hiring posture suggests the company intends to extend the pilot into English-language and Asia-Pacific markets before testing how its ad model holds up against EU enforcement.

Why this announcement matters now

The pace of the buildout is unusually compressed. OpenAI formally confirmed advertising plans on January 16, 2026, ending months of speculation that had followed a December 2, 2025 internal "code red" directive from CEO Sam Altman that had paused advertising development entirely. The pilot launched on February 9, 2026 for logged-in adult users in the United States on Free and Go subscription tiers, at a $60 CPM with a $200,000 minimum commitment.

By March 2, 2026, Criteo had been announced as the first formal ad tech partner, connecting approximately 17,000 advertiser clients to ChatGPT's Free and Go tiers in the US. On March 26, 2026, OpenAI disclosed that the pilot had crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks of launch, and named David Dugan, a former Meta advertising executive, to lead its global advertising solutions team. By April, CPMs had fallen from $60 at launch to as low as $25, and the minimum spend threshold had dropped from $250,000 to $50,000.

The May 7 international announcement therefore lands on top of a pilot that has been compressing entry barriers and expanding access on multiple fronts simultaneously. Criteo's update on May 5, 2026 disclosed that over 1,000 brands are now running active campaigns through its ChatGPT API connection, with AI-referred conversion rates approaching twice those of traditional search in retail categories including consumer electronics, lifestyle and wellbeing, and home and garden. Click-through rates have been running approximately three times those of comparable formats in other environments, according to Criteo's figures.

The technology partner roster has also grown. As of May 5, 2026, OpenAI's confirmed ad tech partners include Criteo, Kargo, Adobe, Pacvue and StackAdapt. Pacvue's integration was announced the same day, with Kepler activating campaigns for more than ten brands as its first independent agency partner. The week of May 5 produced more structural change in the ChatGPT advertising ecosystem than any prior period since the pilot began.

What the format actually looks like

Ad units in ChatGPT follow a standardised format. According to OpenAI's published help documentation, each unit includes the advertiser name, a favicon, a title headline of approximately 16 characters, description copy of approximately 32 characters, a landing page URL, and an image asset. The documentation specifies that logos should not be used as the primary visual element in the image creative - a design constraint that pushes advertisers toward product or lifestyle photography rather than logo-led branding.

Campaign structure follows a three-tier hierarchy. A Campaign defines the objective, budget, start and end dates, and targeting parameters. An Ad Group is a collection of ads organised around a specific theme or intent area, and it is at this level that advertisers supply context hints - phrases describing the types of conversations where their products may be relevant. The individual Ad is the creative unit shown in ChatGPT.

Placement and pricing details have been disclosed gradually. Ads appear below relevant ChatGPT conversations, not within the responses themselves. The CPM model defaults to $60 per thousand impressions, while the new CPC option recommends starting maximum bids between $3 and $5 per click. Performance reporting in Ads Manager Beta now includes impressions, clicks, spend, click-through rate, average CPC, average CPM, and conversions, with the last contingent on having configured the Conversions API.

Similarweb data summarised by Search Engine Roundtable on May 5, 2026 puts the overall ChatGPT click-through rate at 0.68%, with the top quartile at 1% and the best-performing brands reaching 1.57%. Those figures are below the rates Criteo has disclosed through its API integration, suggesting that the partner-managed route may be producing better outcomes than the general inventory pool.

Reactions from the marketing community

The LinkedIn post that carried the announcement attracted 569 reactions and 73 comments within a week, with 35 reposts. The comment thread reflected the split that has marked the pilot since its inception.

One commenter pointed out the historical pattern of advertising on platforms. "It starts with 'clearly labeled' and 'separate' ads, then slowly the ads get closer to the content, then the content starts favouring advertisers. Once ad revenue becomes a significant part of the business, it will influence everything. The experience always degrades over time," the comment read.

Others took a more structural view. One commenter described the dynamic this way: "Shop links in chat answers is the new SEO. CTR doesn't measure interest, it measures whether the model has been trained to suggest you. Distribution moved from page rank to model rank."

A separate observation focused on segmentation. "The split between free/Go getting ads and Pro/Enterprise staying clean is the real signal. It tells you OpenAI is segmenting users the way subscription apps do, not the way Google does, which means the auction dynamics will look closer to Spotify than to Search."

The skepticism on whether ads remain non-influential ran through multiple threads. "The pattern is predictable, platforms always start with 'ads won't influence content' until ad revenue becomes too critical to maintain that separation," one commenter wrote. Another posed the question directly: "Will we know when a product identified is a paid advertisement? When searching for 'things' using GPT will it prioritize paid sponsors or can you still get honest responses when using the LLM to help sort through information?"

The supportive interpretation framed the format as a structural step forward for advertising. "The conversation does not lead with a paid ad and ads follow as a logical next step that the customer would have anyways taken somewhere else after discovery/information consumption," one commenter argued, suggesting that horizontal carousels showing price, in-stock status, and delivery options could extend the format usefully.

Shomair's role and OpenAI's monetization buildout

Benji Shomair joined OpenAI as VP of Monetization in December 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile. His remit, as listed on the same profile, is "Building the OAI business across Ads, Commerce and Apps." His public communications since the pilot launched have functioned as the company's primary external commentary on advertising direction.

Shomair was preceded in that public-facing role by Asad Awan, who heads monetization at OpenAI and whose February 9, 2026 podcast appearance outlined a longer-term vision in which small businesses could create and manage campaigns by simply prompting ChatGPT - a claim that drew immediate skepticism from agency professionals at the time.

The financial backdrop to the international expansion is one of substantial pressure. OpenAI is projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 by its own internal estimates, according to figures reported by Digiday in April. Internal projections target $102 billion in advertising revenue by 2030. The pilot must therefore scale fast enough to validate the trajectory of those projections without compromising the user trust that underpins ChatGPT's appeal. The international expansion is the natural next step in that scaling.

Roughly 85% of ChatGPT users were eligible to see advertisements as of the March 26 disclosure, yet fewer than 20% encountered them on any given day. That gap between eligibility and exposure suggests deliberate restraint in ad load during the pilot phase, leaving meaningful room for monetization growth within the existing user base before international rollout. With the addition of five major non-US markets, the eligibility base widens substantially, even if exposure rates remain controlled.

The publishing infrastructure questions

The expansion also raises practical infrastructure questions for advertisers and publishers operating in the newly added markets. OpenAI's OAI-AdsBot crawler appeared in the company's public crawler documentation on April 21, 2026, with three stated functions tied to landing page verification, brand safety review, and ad relevance assessment. Brands launching campaigns in the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil or Mexico will need to ensure that their landing pages are configured to accept OAI-AdsBot requests for verification before delivery.

Privacy policy obligations also differ across the new markets. The United Kingdom operates a post-Brexit version of the GDPR through the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Brazil's Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) imposes a strict consent regime. South Korea's Personal Information Protection Act is among the more demanding privacy frameworks in Asia, and Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information was amended most recently in 2022. Mexico's Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties is the older of the framework set but is undergoing reform.

OpenAI's updated US privacy policy, dated April 30, 2026, formally discloses for the first time that the company receives purchase data from advertisers, shares user information with marketing partners for third-party targeting, and uses personal data to promote its own products. Equivalent disclosures would need to be made in each of the new pilot markets, or in jurisdiction-specific privacy notices, before advertising commences at scale.

Timeline

• September 24, 2025 - OpenAI posts job listing for a Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer to build advertising infrastructure for ChatGPT
• December 2, 2025 - CEO Sam Altman issues internal "code red" directive pausing advertising development
• January 16, 2026 - OpenAI formally confirms plans to test advertising in ChatGPT Free and Go tiers in the United States (PPC Land coverage)
• February 6, 2026 - OpenAI begins accepting advertisers; early participants include Target, Ford, Mrs. Meyer's, and Adobe
• February 9, 2026 - ChatGPT advertising pilot formally launches at $60 CPM with a $200,000 minimum commitment
• March 2, 2026 - Criteo announced as first ad tech partner in the pilot (PPC Land coverage)
• March 26, 2026 - ChatGPT advertising crosses $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks; OpenAI announces expansion to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; David Dugan named global head of advertising solutions (PPC Land coverage)
• April 10, 2026 - OpenAI quietly launches self-serve Ads Manager, lowering minimum spend threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 (PPC Land coverage)
• April 17-18, 2026 - ChatGPT CPMs reported as low as $25, down from $60 at launch (PPC Land coverage)
• April 21, 2026 - OAI-AdsBot appears in OpenAI's public crawler documentation (PPC Land coverage)
• April 27, 2026 - Adthena launches ChatGPT AdBridge, a free migration tool from Google Ads (PPC Land coverage)
• April 29, 2026 - Meta announces open beta of Meta Ads AI Connectors, enabling Claude and ChatGPT to manage Meta ad campaigns (PPC Land coverage)
• April 30, 2026 - OpenAI updates its US privacy policy to formally disclose receipt of purchase data from advertisers and data sharing with marketing partners
• May 5, 2026 - OpenAI opens self-serve Ads Manager to all US businesses with CPC bidding and Conversions API; Criteo discloses over 1,000 brands live with conversions approaching 2x search (PPC Land coverage); Kargo, Pacvue and StackAdapt named as technology partners (PPC Land coverage)
• May 7, 2026 - OpenAI VP of Monetization Benji Shomair announces expansion of ChatGPT ads pilot to the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico; OpenAI's ads careers page lists 19 open roles across Tokyo, Seoul, London, Sydney and Sao Paulo (PPC Land coverage)

Summary

Who: OpenAI, through Benji Shomair, VP of Monetization, announced the geographic expansion of the ChatGPT advertising pilot. Shomair joined OpenAI in December 2025 with a remit covering Ads, Commerce and Apps. Plus, Pro and Enterprise users will remain unaffected by the expansion.

What: OpenAI is extending the ChatGPT advertising pilot to five new countries: the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico. Ads will continue to be tested only on the Free and Go subscription tiers, will remain separate and clearly labeled, and will not influence the answers ChatGPT provides, according to OpenAI's stated principles.

When: The expansion was announced on May 7, 2026 via a LinkedIn post. The rollout will occur "in the coming weeks," with no specific launch dates for each country disclosed at the point of announcement.

Where: The five new markets bring the pilot's total geographic footprint to nine countries. Continental Europe remains absent from the rollout, likely due to regulatory complexity under the GDPR, the Digital Markets Act and the EU AI Act. Existing pilot countries include the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Why: OpenAI is projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 and targets $102 billion in advertising revenue by 2030. The pilot crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks of launch and has been scaling on multiple fronts since, with technology partner integrations, self-serve infrastructure, the introduction of CPC bidding, and the launch of a Conversions API all arriving inside a three-month window. The international expansion is the next operational step toward scaling the channel into a commercially significant revenue stream ahead of a planned IPO expected later in 2026.