ChatGPT Ads News: Rollout Timeline & Latest Updates (Late September 2026)
The running timeline of ChatGPT Ads: from the November 2025 code leak to 63 self-serve countries by late September 2026 — Southeast Asia and Taiwan live, bulk product feed campaigns, non-goal conversion reporting, and separate account, brand and legal names. Confirmed vs reported, updated as OpenAI ships.
Short answer: Ads in ChatGPT went from leaked code strings in November 2025 to a live, self-serve ad platform by May 2026. By the end of September 2026 self-service Ads Manager is available in 63 countries: the original nine, all 31 European markets, Türkiye, India, 14 markets across the Middle East and North Africa, and Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan — Southeast Asia and Taiwan being the newest wave. Campaigns can be built from inside ChatGPT or Codex with the ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin, product feed campaigns can be bulk-created from a spreadsheet, the Insights API reports conversions beyond a campaign's goal, and accounts now carry separate account, brand and legal names. This page is the running timeline, updated as OpenAI ships.
The current state, in 60 seconds
- Who sees ads: Free and Go users in supported markets. Not Plus, Pro, or Business users; not users OpenAI predicts to be under 18. (Confirmed — full breakdown here.)
- Who can advertise: businesses whose legal entity is based in an available country — currently 63 countries: the original nine, all 31 European markets, Türkiye, India, 14 markets across the Middle East and North Africa, and Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. (Confirmed — OpenAI's Ads Manager Availability article; full breakdown in ChatGPT Ads countries.)
- How you build: the Ads Manager UI, bulk upload, product feeds — or, new in September, the ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin, which creates, edits, troubleshoots and reviews campaigns from a plain-language conversation in ChatGPT or Codex. (Confirmed.)
- What's buyable: clearly labeled ad units below relevant conversations — CPM, CPC and oCPC objectives, Maximize results automated bidding, platform targeting across iOS app / Android app / web, custom audiences, and product feed campaigns for retail catalogs, including the multi-product carousel unit. (Confirmed.)
- What's next: a conversion optimisation model that optimises on view-through as well as click conversions, billed on impressions while delivery chases your conversion goal. Announced for a broader rollout, not yet general. (Confirmed — OpenAI release notes.)
The full timeline: from leak to live platform
| Date | What happened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Early 2025 | Leaked internal forecasts, reported by the press, project ~$1B in free-user monetization revenue for 2026 — the first signal ads were on the roadmap | Reported |
| Mid 2025 | Sam Altman softens his long-held "ads as last resort" stance, saying on the OpenAI podcast the company is not opposed to advertising | Reported |
| Nov 27–29, 2025 | The leak. ChatGPT Android beta v1.2025.329 ships with code strings referencing "search ad," "search ads carousel," and "bazaar content" — spotted by engineer Tibor Blaho, covered by BleepingComputer, Adweek, and Search Engine Land | Reported (code verified by multiple outlets) |
| Dec 2025 | First user sightings of ads in the wild reported by trade press | Reported |
| Feb 2026 | ChatGPT's ads pilot begins, per press reporting | Reported |
| May 5, 2026 | Official launch. OpenAI announces "new ways to buy ChatGPT ads": the self-serve Ads Manager Beta opens to U.S. advertisers of all sizes, with CPC bidding and expanded measurement; reporting notes the earlier $50K minimum spend is eliminated | Confirmed (OpenAI announcement) |
| Jun 2026 | Ads Manager Beta expands with budgeting and geo-targeting controls, per trade coverage | Reported |
| Jun 2026 | Product feed campaigns launch in Ads Manager: retailers upload catalogs (up to 2M products) via SFTP and generate ads from them; OpenAI calls feed ads "among the strongest-performing ads in our program to date" | Confirmed (OpenAI help documentation) |
| Mid 2026 | Pilot expansion toward the U.K., Mexico, Japan, Brazil, and South Korea reported | Reported |
| August 2026 | Measurement and optimisation wave: oCPC opens in beta for product feed campaigns; oCPC campaigns can be cloned from CPC and created in bulk; dynamic URL macros ship; automatic advanced matching becomes the default for new Web pixels; pixel validation diagnostics land in Ads Manager; Hightouch and Triple Whale conversion integrations go live; multi-product carousel enters testing; Brazil and Mexico announced | Confirmed — OpenAI documentation and release notes |
| Late Aug 2026 | Automation, surfaces, and markets. The Maximize results bid strategy ships and becomes the default for eligible new ad groups; platform targeting adds iOS app / Android app / web control; one-day view-through conversions (VTA 1d) arrive in reporting at campaign, ad group and ad level; WorkMagic joins the conversions integrations; Brazil and Mexico go live, and 31 European countries are listed as coming soon | Confirmed — OpenAI documentation |
| Sept 2026 | The plugin, and the map. The ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin ships for ChatGPT and Codex — campaign creation, edits, delivery troubleshooting and prioritised recommendations in plain language, with every change previewed and confirmed before it is applied. Custom audiences gain incremental member updates, mixed identifiers, sub-25K exclusion audiences, 5M+ sizes and GAID matching. Conversion matching fields expand across the Pixel and Conversions API. Carousel card impressions and clicks land in reporting and the Insights API. Total budget campaigns start pacing. And ChatGPT Ads begins rolling out to select countries in Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa | Confirmed — OpenAI release notes |
What the November 2025 leak actually contained
The queries people still search — "openai ads chatgpt leak," "chatgpt ads leak november 2025" — trace back to one event. A beta build of the ChatGPT Android app (version 1.2025.329) contained newly added strings referencing an ads system:"search ad," "search ads carousel," and"bazaar content" (widely read as an internal codename). No ads were live; this was scaffolding in code, surfaced in the last days of November 2025 and credited to Tibor Blaho, lead engineer at AIPRM.
In hindsight the leak read the roadmap correctly: conversational ad units and shopping-adjacent formats, not banner clutter. Within roughly six months, ads went from hidden strings to a public, self-serve platform — a fast ramp by ad-platform standards, and worth remembering when evaluating each new "reported" item in the table above.
Confirmed vs. rumored: what we hold to OpenAI's docs
| Claim | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Ads show for Free and Go users in US, CA, AU, NZ only | Confirmed — OpenAI documentation |
| Paid plans (Plus, Pro, Business) see no ads | Confirmed — OpenAI documentation |
| Ads are labeled, separate from answers, with user choice and control | Confirmed — OpenAI's stated design principles |
| Self-serve Ads Manager open to U.S. advertisers, no $50K minimum | Confirmed launch — minimum-spend removal per reporting |
| Product feed campaigns for retail catalogs | Confirmed — OpenAI help documentation |
| Ads Manager live in the UK, Japan, Korea, Brazil and Mexico | Confirmed — OpenAI availability documentation (was 'reported' until August 2026) |
| ChatGPT Ads expanding into Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa | Confirmed — announced September 2026, rolling out to select countries; 31 European markets had been listed "Coming Soon" |
| Automated bidding via Maximize results, default for eligible new ad groups | Confirmed — OpenAI bid strategy documentation |
| Conversion-objective bidding, broader formats, agency tooling | Rumored/expected — unconfirmed |
What shipped in August 2026
The most substantial batch of changes since the platform opened, and notably almost all of it is measurement and optimisation rather than reach. That is the shape of a channel moving from land-grab to accountability — and it is the point at which advertisers who instrumented properly start to separate from those who did not.
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| oCPC beta for product feed campaigns | Retailers can finally optimise catalog inventory toward conversions. Click-billed, fixed or manual bidding, positive conversion bid cap required. Reverses the previous incompatibility — see the conversion campaigns guide. |
| Clone CPC → oCPC, and bulk oCPC creation | You still cannot convert a campaign in place, but you can clone one. Ads Manager prefills the conversion event when exactly one is eligible, otherwise prompts. Bulk creation makes portfolio migration practical. |
| Dynamic URL parameters | {campaign_id}, {ad_group_id}, {ad_id}, {ad_account_id} populate at delivery time. The join key between Ads Manager and your own analytics — see the reporting guide. |
| Automatic advanced matching (AAM) | Default for new Web pixels; enabled for existing Web pixels on 17 August 2026. Hashes supported form data with SHA-256 in the browser. Opt out beforehand via Tools → Conversions → Data Source → Edit pixel. |
| Pixel validation diagnostics | Ads Manager now shows why events were dropped, the affected field, the error type and a recommended fix. Tools → Conversions, right-hand panel. |
| Hightouch conversions API support | Send conversion events to ChatGPT Ads from any warehouse model — Pixel ID plus API key, with a live debugger and sync alerting. |
| Triple Whale integration | Measure ChatGPT Ads alongside other channels; Sonar Optimize sends stronger conversion signals back to OpenAI. |
| Multi-product carousel test | Several products from one advertiser in a single feed-ad unit. Testing, not general release — but it raises the cost of an inconsistent product feed. |
| Brazil and Mexico | Announced expansion beyond the original four markets, opening the channel to advertisers with business in those countries. |
The late-August wave: automation, surfaces and new markets
If the first half of August was about measurement, the second half was about handing over control and opening the map. Bidding became automatic by default, campaigns gained a control over which ChatGPT surfaces they run on, reporting started counting conversions that never involved a click, and the addressable market roughly quadrupled. Each of these changes something you are already doing.
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Maximize results bid strategy | ChatGPT Ads sets and adjusts bids automatically, optimising toward your selected campaign goal to get the most results from your budget. Selected by default for eligible new ad groups — so most advertisers are now using it whether they chose it or not. It explicitly does not guarantee a CPA, CPC or ROAS target; use Manual: Max bid where you need a ceiling. What we do with it. |
| Platform targeting | A Platforms multi-select in the campaign dialog: iOS App, Android App, or Web (desktop and mobile web). Note the asymmetry — Insights still group device reporting into Mobile and Desktop, with mobile web counted under Mobile, so you can currently target more precisely than you can report. |
| One-day view-through conversions | Ads Manager now reports VTA (1d) at campaign, ad group and ad level. Counted when someone converts within one day of an eligible impression and no qualifying click takes credit — if both qualify, the click wins. At launch it was supplemental and excluded from the Conversions total; since the September flexible-window release it is included in the total whenever the view-through reporting window is set to 1 Day, and excluded at 0 Day. It still does not affect bidding or billing. How to read it without double-counting. |
| WorkMagic integration | Connect ChatGPT Ads to WorkMagic to view performance alongside your other channels and send conversion signals back to OpenAI through the Conversions API — joining the Hightouch and Triple Whale integrations from earlier in the month. |
| Brazil, Mexico, and 31 European markets | Brazil (40 BRL daily minimum) and Mexico (150 MXN) are live in Ads Manager, taking the available list to nine. Thirty-one European countries — the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland — are listed as Coming Soon. Launch readiness. |
September 2026: the plugin, the map, and audience control
August was measurement and automation. September is access — to the platform, to the map, and to your own first-party data. Campaigns can now be run from a conversation instead of a dashboard, the addressable market has jumped beyond the original nine countries for the first time, and custom audiences stopped being a build-once-and-rebuild artefact. Read the table as a to-do list, not a newsletter.
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin | Create, manage and analyse campaigns from inside ChatGPT or Codex, in plain language. It turns a website or a brief into ready-to-launch ads, spins up creative variants, updates live campaigns, troubleshoots delivery, reviews performance and returns prioritised recommendations. Critically, it previews every recommended change and asks for confirmation before applying it — so it is an assistant with a handbrake, not an autopilot. Add it from Plugins, connect your account, start a conversation. |
| Custom audience improvements | You can now add, remove or replace members without recreating the audience, mix identifier types in a single request, use audiences below 25K matched users for exclusions, build audiences beyond 5M members, read more granular audience-size ranges, and match on Google Advertising ID (GAID). The sub-25K exclusion change is the quiet one: suppressing existing customers no longer requires a list big enough to target. |
| More conversion matching fields | The Measurement Pixel now supports hashed phone, first name, last name, region and postal code. The Conversions API supports plural list fields for hashed email, phone, external ID, first and last name, country, city, region and postal code — plus Android GAID for mobile. More match keys means more conversions attributed to the ads that actually caused them. How we instrument it. |
| Carousel ad unit insights | When a product feed campaign serves in the multi-product carousel, Ads Manager reporting now includes carousel card impressions and clicks, with product-level fields in the public Insights API. A card impression counts when an individual product card becomes viewable — it is separate from billable ad impressions and is not included in billable impression counts. Complete data runs from 20 August 2026 on a rolling 30-day basis. See the product feed guide. |
| Campaign total budget pacing | Campaigns set to a total budget now pace spend more evenly across the flight rather than front-loading it. Actual spend still varies day to day with available delivery opportunities — but a two-week flight should no longer exhaust itself in four days. Budget mechanics in the cost guide. |
| View-through conversion optimisation (coming soon) | A new conversion optimisation model will optimise on conversions from both ad clicks and ad views. Billing is impression-based while delivery optimises toward your selected conversion goal. Announced for a wider rollout rather than shipped — but it is the campaign type to model your upper-funnel case against. Context in the conversion campaigns guide. |
| Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa | ChatGPT Ads began rolling out to select countries across these regions in the first week of September — the first expansion beyond the original nine markets since Brazil and Mexico, and the moment the European queue started moving. Launch readiness. |
Late September 2026: bulk feeds, non-goal reporting, three account names, and Southeast Asia
September's first half was about access. The second half is about operating at scale: building catalog campaigns in bulk, seeing what those campaigns really sell, managing many accounts cleanly, and a map that now covers most of Southeast Asia. Everything below is confirmed from OpenAI's weekly product update and its help and developer documentation.
| Change | What it means for advertisers |
|---|---|
| Bulk creation for product feed campaigns | Create multiple product feed campaigns and ad groups from a spreadsheet, with ad templates generated automatically. Campaigns → Bulk uploads → Bulk sheet, then download the Product feed template. How it works |
| Product review status | The Products tab now shows review status for products in feed campaigns, so you can track products through review and see why one was rejected. |
| Report conversions beyond your campaign goal | The Insights API's POST /v1/conversions/insights accepts "include": ["attributed_events"] and returns attributed events that are not the campaign's goal — for example, purchases on a campaign optimising for leads — without changing the goal or optimisation settings. Full guide |
| Separate account, brand and legal names | Since 25 September 2026, Settings → General holds three names. Account Name changes trigger no review; Brand Name changes pause serving until approved; Legal Name changes restart business review and may pause serving. What each controls |
| Southeast Asia and Taiwan live | Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. The availability table now lists 63 self-serve countries. Every market |
| Two signup paths | Start from your website URL — Ads Manager drafts your first ad and campaign during signup — or skip straight into Ads Manager. Either way, one advertiser name fills all three account names. |
| Additional accounts and the 10-account limit | Eligible self-serve, card-billed advertisers can create additional ad accounts from the account menu. Once you belong to 10 or more ad accounts, you cannot create another yourself — but you can still be invited. |
| Three ways to import a feed | Upload a CSV or TXT file, point at a hosted URL, or connect SFTP. Feed items expire after two weeks, so automate refreshes. |
What this means for advertisers right now
As a GPT Ads AI read: the window between "platform opens" and "platform gets crowded" is where early CPCs and easy learnings live — we saw it on Meta in 2013 and TikTok in 2020, and the same dynamic is visible in this beta. Practical moves, in order:
- Get the account approved now — approval, not campaign build, is the critical path, and the queue is longest exactly when a new market opens. Steps in our account setup guide.
- Advertisers outside the original nine markets: check your entity and your category this week — 63 countries are now self-serve, but eligibility follows where your legal entity is based, and many health and finance categories are not allowed outside the US. Every market and the policy table; what to have ready.
- Check your bid strategy before every launch — Maximize results is the default for eligible new ad groups, and it optimises for volume rather than efficiency. Decide deliberately per ad group.
- Budget from documented numbers, not rumor — bids, auction mechanics, and the per-currency daily minimums are in our ChatGPT Ads cost guide.
- Retailers: start the feed work — spec mapping and SFTP setup take days, and the carousel unit now reports at product-card level; the product feed guide has the field reference and launch checklist.
- Send more match keys, not more budget — the new Pixel and Conversions API fields are the cheapest attribution win on this list. Conversion tracking guide.
We update this page when material changes ship. For the evergreen explainer of how the ad product works, start withWhat are ChatGPT Ads? — and if you want the channel run for you while it's still early,that's our whole job.
Quick answers.
What changed in ChatGPT Ads in late September 2026?
Five product updates: bulk creation for product feed campaigns from a spreadsheet with auto-generated ad templates; product review status in the Products tab; reporting of attributed conversions beyond a campaign's goal through the Insights API; separate Account, Brand and Legal names in Settings → General from 25 September; and ChatGPT Ads going live in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Is ChatGPT Ads available in Southeast Asia?
Yes. Since late September 2026 ChatGPT Ads is live in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, plus Taiwan, and all seven are listed as available for self-service Ads Manager.
Does changing my brand name in ChatGPT Ads pause my ads?
Yes. Since 25 September 2026 the Brand Name is a separate field in Settings → General, and changing it triggers brand review and pauses ad serving until the new name is approved. Changing the internal Account Name does not trigger review.
Is ChatGPT showing ads right now?
Yes. Per OpenAI's documentation, ads are shown to Free and Go plan users in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Plus, Pro, and Business plan users do not see ads, and OpenAI states ads are not shown to users it predicts to be under 18. If you are outside those four countries or on a paid plan, you will not see ads yet.
When did OpenAI add ads to ChatGPT?
The rollout ran in stages: code strings referencing ads leaked from a ChatGPT Android beta build in late November 2025, press reporting placed the ads pilot's start in February 2026, and on May 5, 2026 OpenAI officially launched its self-serve Ads Manager beta, opening ChatGPT advertising to U.S. advertisers of all sizes. Product feed campaigns for retailers followed in June 2026.
What was the ChatGPT ads leak?
In late November 2025, a beta build of the ChatGPT Android app (version 1.2025.329) was found to contain new code strings referencing ads features — including 'search ad,' 'search ads carousel,' and 'bazaar content.' The find, widely credited to engineer Tibor Blaho and reported by outlets like BleepingComputer and Search Engine Land, was the first hard evidence that OpenAI was building an ad system, weeks before anything official.
What is the OpenAI Ads Manager?
The Ads Manager Beta is OpenAI's self-serve platform for creating, launching, and managing ChatGPT ad campaigns — budgets, bids, creative, reporting, and account settings in one dashboard, reached via ads.openai.com. It launched publicly on May 5, 2026, with reporting noting OpenAI dropped the earlier $50,000 minimum spend so SMBs and startups could join.
Which countries have ChatGPT ads?
Two different questions sit inside that one. On the advertiser side, self-service Ads Manager is available where your legal entity is based in one of 63 countries: the original nine, all 31 European markets, Türkiye, India, 14 markets across the Middle East and North Africa, and Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan. On the user side, ads are shown to Free and Go plan users in supported markets. Ads Manager availability governs where you can buy, not necessarily where every ad is served.
Do ads change ChatGPT's answers?
OpenAI says no. Its stated design principles are that ads are clearly labeled, kept separate from answers, and give users choice and control. Organic product results in ChatGPT search are 'selected independently by ChatGPT and are not ads, nor influenced by any OpenAI partnerships,' per OpenAI's shopping documentation.
What ad formats does ChatGPT have?
Documented formats center on clearly labeled ad units that appear below relevant conversation responses — with an advertiser name, title, copy, image, and landing-page link — plus product feed ads generated from retailer catalogs (launched June 2026). The leaked Android code also referenced a 'search ads carousel,' and formats are expected to evolve through the beta.
Why is OpenAI adding ads to ChatGPT?
Monetizing free users. Leaked internal forecasts reported by the press projected roughly $1 billion in free-user monetization revenue for 2026. Sam Altman had historically called ads a last resort, then publicly softened that stance — saying OpenAI wasn't opposed to advertising — before the ads pilot and self-serve Ads Manager arrived in 2026.
How do I advertise on ChatGPT now?
Apply for an advertiser account through OpenAI's Ads Manager at ads.openai.com — sign-up, identity verification through Persona, business details, and billing — then build campaigns through the guided UI, bulk upload, or product feeds. Our account setup guide walks through all five steps, and the ads cost guide covers what bids and budgets to expect.
Where can I follow ChatGPT ads news?
OpenAI's own channels are the ground truth: the openai.com newsroom, the Ads section of the OpenAI Help Center, and developers.openai.com/ads for platform changes. Trade press (Search Engine Land, Adweek, Marketing Dive, Axios) covers the beta closely. We update this page as material changes ship, so bookmarking it works too.
What changed in ChatGPT Ads in August 2026?
August split into two waves. The first was measurement: oCPC bidding entered beta for product feed campaigns, oCPC campaigns became cloneable from CPC and creatable in bulk, dynamic URL parameters shipped, automatic advanced matching became the default for new Web pixels and was enabled for existing ones on 17 August, pixel validation diagnostics arrived, and Hightouch and Triple Whale integrations went live. The second wave was automation and reach: the Maximize results bid strategy shipped as the default for eligible new ad groups, platform targeting added iOS app / Android app / web control, one-day view-through conversions (VTA 1d) arrived in reporting, WorkMagic joined the conversions integrations, Brazil and Mexico went live, and 31 European countries were listed as coming soon.
What happens to ChatGPT Ads pixels on 17 August 2026?
OpenAI enables automatic advanced matching for existing Web pixels on that date. AAM lets the pixel detect supported customer information in website forms, normalise and hash it with SHA-256 in the browser, and include it with conversion events so more conversions can be matched to ads. It is already the default for new Web pixels. To opt out, or to buy time for a privacy review, go to Tools → Conversions → Data Source and choose Edit pixel before the date — you can re-enable it later.
What is the Maximize results bid strategy in ChatGPT Ads?
A bid strategy that lets ChatGPT Ads automatically set and adjust bids on your behalf, optimising toward your selected campaign goal — such as clicks or conversions — to get as many results as possible from your budget. It is selected by default for eligible new ad groups and is reviewed or changed in the ad group's Bid strategy section. Importantly, it prioritises result volume and does not guarantee delivery against a specific CPA, CPC, ROAS, or other cost-efficiency target at this time. If you need to stay within a bid limit, use Manual: Max bid instead.
Is ChatGPT Ads available in Europe?
Yes. The United Kingdom and all 31 European markets — the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland — are listed as available for self-service Ads Manager, along with Türkiye. OpenAI also notes that advertisers in the new European markets can get started through its Ads Solutions team, agency partners or technology partners.
What are view-through conversions in ChatGPT Ads?
A view-through conversion is counted when someone converts within one day of seeing an eligible ad impression, and no qualifying ad click receives credit for the same conversion. If both an impression and a click qualify, the click gets credit. They arrived in August 2026 as a separate VTA (1d) column. September 2026 then added flexible attribution windows: a 7, 14 or 30-day click-through reporting window and a 0 Day or 1 Day view-through window. With the view-through window set to 1 Day, eligible view-through conversions are now included in the Conversions total, with Click-through conversions and View-through conversions available as separate columns. Window changes affect reporting only, not bidding, billing or optimisation.
What is platform targeting in ChatGPT Ads?
A campaign-level control over which ChatGPT surfaces your ads can deliver on. In the campaign dialog, the Platforms multi-select dropdown lets you include one or more of iOS App, Android App, and Web, where Web covers both desktop and mobile web. One caveat worth planning around: Insights currently group device reporting into Mobile and Desktop, with mobile web counted under Mobile, so targeting is currently more granular than reporting.
What is the ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin?
It is a plugin, launched in September 2026, that lets you create, manage, and analyse ChatGPT Ads campaigns from inside ChatGPT or Codex using plain language. It can turn a website or a brief into ready-to-launch ads, generate creative variants, update existing campaigns, troubleshoot delivery problems, review performance, and return prioritised recommendations. It previews recommended changes and asks for confirmation before applying them, so it does not act on your account unattended. To use it, add ChatGPT Ads Manager from Plugins, connect your ad account, and start a conversation.
What changed in ChatGPT Ads in September 2026?
Seven things. The ChatGPT Ads Manager plugin shipped for ChatGPT and Codex. Custom audiences gained incremental member updates, mixed identifier types in one request, sub-25K audiences for exclusions, sizes beyond 5M members, more granular size ranges, and GAID matching. The Measurement Pixel added hashed phone, first name, last name, region, and postal code, while the Conversions API added plural list fields and Android GAID. Carousel card impressions and clicks arrived in Ads Manager reporting and the Insights API, with complete data from 20 August 2026 on a rolling 30-day basis. Total budget campaigns started pacing spend more evenly. A conversion optimisation model that includes view-through conversions was announced as coming soon. And ChatGPT Ads began rolling out to select countries in Europe, India, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Are carousel card impressions billable in ChatGPT Ads?
No. A carousel card impression is counted when an individual product card in the multi-product carousel unit becomes viewable, and OpenAI states these are separate from billable ad impressions and are not included in billable impression counts. Treat them as an engagement diagnostic for which products in a feed campaign are actually being seen — not as the impression denominator in CPM or CTR. Complete carousel data is available from 20 August 2026 on a rolling 30-day basis.
Related guides.
What Are ChatGPT Ads?
The plain-English explanation of how sponsored placements work inside ChatGPT, who can run them, what to expect on cost and timing, and where the channel fits in a real performance program.
Read guideConversion Campaigns (oCPC)
The Conversions objective, oCPC bidding mechanics, how to pick the event you optimise toward, Bid Cap strategy, the July 2026 average daily budget change, the API fields — and the mistakes that quietly kill conversion campaigns.
Read guideChatGPT Ads Reporting
Ads Manager reports one combined Conversions number by default — and most advertisers never find the menu that breaks it apart. Metrics, columns, exports, macros and the troubleshooting tree.
Read guideChoosing a ChatGPT Ads Agency
Most agencies selling "ChatGPT Ads" in 2026 have never logged into Ads Manager Beta. Seven verifiable tests, a pricing-model comparison, and the questions to ask on the call.
Read guideWant this run for you?
GPT Ads AI is a done-for-you ChatGPT Ads agency. The services below cover exactly what this guide describes.
International launch: Europe, Southeast Asia, India, MENA
ChatGPT Ads is now self-serve in 63 countries, including Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Right entity, currency and names; your category checked against the country policy table; creative and context hints localised per market.
See the serviceChatGPT Ads management
A senior operator runs the whole channel — account, structure, context hints, creative, bidding, measurement, and weekly written reporting — on a fixed retainer.
See the service
Tarun Kapoor
Founder · GPT Ads AI
Performance marketer with 12+ years in paid acquisition. Former senior media buyer at Neil Patel Digital. Alumni of GroupM, WPP, Ogilvy & Mather, and Toptal's Growth Collective. Fractional CMO to Fortune 500 brands and venture-backed startups.
Book a call with Tarun