Ads inside AI chats are no longer just a US experiment. OpenAI has widened its ChatGPT Ads programme to 31 European markets, including Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria. The company announced the expansion in August, after months of testing in America.
The first brands to try it include Volkswagen and Vodafone. In the Netherlands, advertisers and agencies can already buy ChatGPT placements through the tools they use for the rest of their digital campaigns, with no new setup. Adform, one of the ad-tech partners behind the rollout, is building the reporting side. Marketers will be able to put ChatGPT results next to display and social and see where an AI conversation actually fits in a buyer’s path, from first curiosity to final purchase.
Who sees the ads is limited. Free and Go users get them, while Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscribers don’t. OpenAI says ads are always labelled, kept separate from ChatGPT’s answers, and have no influence on what the chatbot says. It also says advertisers never see people’s conversations and that user data is not sold.
The ad product has grown quickly since its February debut. Bidding was once limited to impressions and clicks. Advertisers can now optimise for conversions, target by location and build custom audiences. Measurement goes beyond clicks too, through OpenAI’s own pixel, a conversions API and third-party tools. The report says tens of thousands of marketers are already advertising on the platform.
The two early adopters have different goals. Volkswagen wants to learn how a carmaker shows up in an environment where people research purchases differently, as a complement to its existing media mix. Vodafone cares less about clicks than about how the channel performs across the full customer journey. It plans to link the results to its broader campaign measurement and decide on that basis how far to scale.
The bigger question is whether people will welcome ads in a space they use to ask questions and make decisions. For now, Europe is the next test.