OpenAI said on 21 October 2026 that more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on ChatGPT, as it expanded ChatGPT Ads to 26 more countries, CNBC reported. OpenAI said the expansion brings ChatGPT Ads to a total of 89 countries, according to CNBC. The Information also reported the expansion and the advertiser figure; Techmeme’s summary of its report says the advertiser base is up from 20,000 in August.
In plain terms, ChatGPT Ads are labelled promotions that appear next to ChatGPT’s answers for people on its free and low-cost plans. OpenAI sells them to businesses, and says they do not change what ChatGPT answers.
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The key insight: As we read it, the advertiser count matters as much as the revenue figure: OpenAI says more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns, against the “Tens of thousands” it described in September.
According to CNBC, OpenAI said its free users and Go subscribers in countries including Argentina, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa and Ukraine will start to see ads in ChatGPT. The ads are separate from ChatGPT’s response to prompts, don’t influence its answers and are clearly labeled, the company said.
“Our goal is to make ads useful to people as they pursue their goals and make decisions — and effective for the businesses that advertise with us,” OpenAI said in a release, as quoted by CNBC.
CNBC wrote that OpenAI has been touting its 8-month-old ads product as a new pillar of its business, which also includes enterprise contracts, consumer subscriptions and usage-based application programming interfaces, or APIs.
CNBC reported that OpenAI plans to keep developing ad formats, measurement capabilities and buying options, and that the company is looking at new ways for businesses to natively interact with ChatGPT consumers.
ChatGPT Ads annualized revenue run rate as reported by CNBC: about $100 million in March 2026 and $1 billion in August 2026. The 10x multiple is our arithmetic. OpenAI said on 21 October 2026 that more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on the platform. Sources: CNBC, 21 October 2026; OpenAI.
CNBC’s post shares its report under the headline that OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT Ads to 26 new countries as its diversification push accelerates. The report, which this piece follows, says the company put the number of advertisers that have run campaigns at more than 100,000.
How Fast the Ad Business Has Grown
OpenAI’s ad business hit $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate in August, up from $100 million in March, as CNBC previously reported. OpenAI began testing ads in the US in February, CNBC wrote.
In a September blog post, OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads had reached that $1 billion run rate “in less than 200 days after launch” and that “Tens of thousands of advertisers are now running ads in ChatGPT.” Today’s figure of more than 100,000 advertisers who have run campaigns is OpenAI’s own count. Techmeme’s summary of The Information’s report says that is up from 20,000 in August; by our arithmetic, that is about five times as many in roughly two months.
By our arithmetic, if 26 new countries take the total to 89, as CNBC reports, ChatGPT Ads were in 63 countries before today. In September, OpenAI said ads are shown only to users on its Free and Go plans, and that “Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscriptions will remain ad-free.”
Anthropic and the IPO Backdrop
CNBC noted that OpenAI’s decision to test ads was ridiculed by chief rival Anthropic, which made the ads push the focus of its first Super Bowl campaign and pledged to keep its chatbot, Claude, ad free.
Both companies are gearing up for widely expected initial public offerings, CNBC reported, though neither has publicly said when it plans to list. CNBC wrote that OpenAI executives have signaled they are eyeing a 2027 listing.
“As more people turn to ChatGPT to explore needs, evaluate options, and make decisions, we see an opportunity to help them discover products and services — and to help businesses of every size grow and thrive,” OpenAI said, according to CNBC.
Update, 21 October: What OpenAI’s Own Posts Say
OpenAI’s own announcement settles the country count. “Since we launched ads just over eight months ago, over 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on ChatGPT. Today, we’re expanding ChatGPT Ads to 26 additional countries, extending availability to 89 countries worldwide,” the company wrote. The post also says “More than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week,” that ads come to “14 more Latin American countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru,” and that “Ads will appear only on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscriptions will remain ad-free.”
On privacy, the post says: “we keep conversations private from advertisers and do not sell customer data. Ads in ChatGPT are clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT’s answers, and advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides.”
A separate OpenAI engineering post describes how that separation is built: “The ads selection process runs alongside ChatGPT’s normal response generation to ensure the ads flow doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s responses. Ads are filtered and selected through a separate system consuming the conversation under its own eligibility, quality, and delivery constraints.” It calls this “This important architectural boundary—different services that use separate models and separate code”.
Connecting the Coverage
Our ChatGPT ads piece on 5 October covered OpenAI introducing a visual ad format, tested first during image generation, and OpenAI saying ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people each week. Its update today recorded MarTech’s report, citing Dan Salmon of New Street Research, that the number of ChatGPT advertisers rose from about 20,000 at the end of August to roughly 60,000 in early October.
Our Google Cloud piece today covered Google adding three OpenAI models to its model garden, which CNBC said puts OpenAI’s models on all three of the top cloud providers. Our Anthropic S-1 piece covered the Journal’s figures for Anthropic’s first half: an $80.7 billion net loss, of which $72 billion came from accounting charges, and around $16.3 billion in revenue. Our bubble scorecard today covered Yardeni’s AI Bubble Meter at 83 out of 100 for bubble conditions.
As we read it, what is new is OpenAI’s own advertiser count. New Street’s estimate and OpenAI’s figure may not measure the same thing: OpenAI counts advertisers that have run campaigns.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the expansion is a reach play: OpenAI said in September that ads are shown only to users on its Free and Go plans, so each new country adds more free users for advertisers to reach.
As we read it, the figures come from different counters. OpenAI counts advertisers that have run campaigns; New Street’s estimate, reported by MarTech, put the number at roughly 60,000 in early October; and the two reports disagree on whether the country total is 89 or 83. (Update, 21 October: OpenAI’s own post puts the total at 89.)
As we read it, the contrast with Anthropic is now a business model choice as well as a marketing one: CNBC notes Anthropic pledged to keep Claude ad free, while OpenAI calls ads a way to support free and low-cost access.
OpenAI blog post, September 2026
“Ads help democratize access to intelligence by supporting free and low-cost access to ChatGPT.”
Three Implications
FOR ADVERTISERS CNBC reports that free users and Go subscribers in countries including Argentina, Peru, Nigeria, South Africa and Ukraine will start to see ads in ChatGPT.
FOR CHATGPT USERS OpenAI said in September that Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions remain ad-free, and that ads are labelled and separate from answers.
FOR INVESTORS CNBC reports that OpenAI’s ad business hit a $1 billion annualized run rate in August and that OpenAI executives have signaled they are eyeing a 2027 listing.
The framework argues that “The labs are running a fat-tail trade where the casual masses cross-subsidize the power users, and the power users deliver the strategic asset.”
As we read it, ads give OpenAI a way to earn from the casual masses without charging them: OpenAI says ads run only on its Free and Go plans. The framework itself is about subscription economics and does not discuss ads.
What Is Not Established
The country total differs between reports: CNBC says OpenAI put it at 89, as did a FirstSquawk wire headline, while Techmeme’s summary of The Information’s report says 83. Update, 21 October: OpenAI’s own post says the total is 89 countries. CNBC’s report does not list all 26 new countries, give a revenue figure for October or say over what period the 100,000 advertisers ran campaigns. We could not open OpenAI’s release or The Information’s article, so OpenAI’s words here are as CNBC quoted them.
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The Subsidized AGI Economy
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OpenAI says more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns on ChatGPT, as its ads reach 89 countries. CNBC described the ads product as a new pillar of OpenAI’s business, alongside enterprise contracts, consumer subscriptions and usage-based APIs. As we read it, the advertiser count shows how many businesses have already tried it.
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A note on sourcing. This piece is built on CNBC’s report of 21 October 2026, read in full, which quotes OpenAI’s release; on The Information’s headline and Techmeme’s summary of its report, whose body we could not read; and on OpenAI’s September blog post, read in full. We could not open OpenAI’s release itself. The two reports give different country totals, and we show both. We did not contact OpenAI. Nothing here is financial or investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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