ChatGPT Ads Arrive in India: OpenAI Promises Chats Stay Private
OpenAI has started rolling out advertisements on ChatGPT in India, marking a significant expansion of the company’s advertising business in one of its largest markets. The ads are being introduced for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go plans, giving businesses a new way to promote products and services within ChatGPT conversations.
More than 50 brands are reportedly preparing to run advertisements on the platform during the initial rollout. OpenAI has also partnered with WPP and Omnicom as its first agency partners in India. The agencies will assist advertisers with campaign planning, creative development, measurement and brand safety.
OpenAI said the agency partnerships are non-exclusive and that it expects to work with additional agencies as its advertising business grows.
ChatGPT Ads Manager opens on September 4
Businesses that prefer to handle advertising campaigns themselves will gain access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Ads Manager from September 4 in India. The self-serve platform will support companies of different sizes, with daily advertising budgets starting at Rs 725.
The advertisements will appear below a ChatGPT response when a relevant sponsored product or service is available. OpenAI said sponsored content will be clearly marked and visually separated from the AI-generated response, making it distinct from ChatGPT’s regular answers.
The company is also emphasising that advertising will not influence how ChatGPT responds to users. According to OpenAI, answers will continue to be generated based on what is considered useful to the user rather than what benefits an advertiser.
“India is one of the most dynamic markets in the world for how people use ChatGPT to learn, build, and discover,” said Dave Dugan, Vice President and Head of Global Ads Solutions at OpenAI. He added that weekly active users in India have doubled year-on-year, with many users relying on ChatGPT to explore options and make decisions rather than simply search for information.
“Our goal is to make those interactions useful, help marketers design for intelligent experiences, and preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable: independent answers, conversations that stay private from advertisers, and meaningful user control,” Dugan said.
OpenAI promises privacy for ChatGPT users
Privacy is likely to be one of the biggest concerns as advertisements become part of the ChatGPT experience. OpenAI said advertisers will not have access to users’ conversations, chat history, memories or personal information.
Instead, advertisers will receive aggregated campaign data, such as impressions and clicks. OpenAI also said it does not sell user data to advertisers.
Users will have several controls over the advertising experience. These include dismissing individual advertisements, providing feedback and managing ad personalisation. OpenAI said users will also be able to clear data used for advertising.
There are additional restrictions on where and to whom ads can be shown. Advertisements will not appear on accounts belonging to people who identify themselves as being under 18 or are predicted to be under 18.
OpenAI also said it will avoid displaying advertisements alongside sensitive or regulated topics, including politics and mental health.
With ads now entering ChatGPT’s Indian user experience, OpenAI is attempting to build a new revenue stream while keeping a clear separation between sponsored content and the answers users receive from the AI platform.