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ChatGPT Ads switch on across 31 European markets

OpenAI's largest ad-business expansion so far lands Monday, opening a decision-moment ad surface to a billion-user chatbot.

By Ben Krauss·Daily desk lead·

OpenAI switched on ChatGPT Ads across 31 European countries on Monday, August 24, bringing its total ad markets to 40 and completing the six-month arc from the February U.S. pilot into the largest single expansion of its advertising business. The move reframes ChatGPT as a decision-moment surface, not a search competitor.

Access is agency-first. Digiday reports the launch partners are Publicis, Omnicom, WPP, Havas, Dentsu and MediaPlus, alongside OpenAI’s own sales team. A self-serve Ads Manager is coming, per OpenAI, “later this summer,” with no fixed date. In the U.S., the equivalent tool launched this spring with a $50,000 minimum spend that has since been dropped, which is the more interesting number: the floor is falling as the surface scales.

Ads appear only on the Free and Go plans (Go runs eight euros a month in Europe, per Reuters via TechXplore). Plus, Pro and Enterprise stay ad-free. That tiering matters. It concentrates commercial exposure on the users who haven’t paid to escape it, which is roughly the same logic that governed the ad-supported web after 2004.

Per The Next Web, OpenAI enterprise marketing chief Colin Fleming said ChatGPT has one billion weekly active users, that 20% show commercial intent, and that ad revenue has risen more than 25% since the start of August, with the briefing-call details credited to Adweek. Those figures land alongside OpenAI’s Revolut deal, which pushed it past the billion-user mark earlier this month.

Regulatory pressure is loading in parallel. Euronews notes the EU AI Act’s ban on manipulative techniques and an open question at the Commission about whether ChatGPT search qualifies as a very large online search engine under the DSA.

For a small-business owner, none of this is actionable yet. The agency roster isn’t the buyer here; the self-serve tool is. That’s a roughly 90-day window to get the organic side of the house in order before founders can buy directly. That’s the same customer-growth work LemonLime prepares proactively, studying the company, industry and competitors and delivering finished outreach and content without another workflow to run.

Sources