OpenAI has announced the launch of ChatGPT ads in India, expanding its advertising program to one of it’s largest and most active markets.

Ads will roll out to logged-in adults using the Free and Go tiers, while the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education subscriptions will remain ad-free.

WPP and Omnicom will be OpenAI's first agency partners for ChatGPT Ads in India. These agencies’ early involvement aims to support a local ecosystem and enable advertisers to make the most of ChatGPT's conversational environment from day one, with more than 50 brands intending to go live with their advertisements on ChatGPT in the country this week, the brand stated.

The model is non-exclusive, and OpenAI will continue to identify and work with other agencies.

Ads may appear below a ChatGPT response when there is a relevant sponsored product or service. They will always be clearly labelled as sponsored and visually separate from ChatGPT’s answer, and not influence the answers it provides.

In addition, ads will not be shown on accounts belonging to people who identify themselves, or are predicted, to be under 18. Ads will also not be eligible to appear alongside sensitive or regulated topics, including mental health and politics. The company will continue applying advertising policies designed to reduce scams, misleading claims, and other harmful content.

Advertisers receive aggregate campaign-performance information, such as impressions and clicks, rather than access to individual conversations.

The launch will be followed with self-serve access to ChatGPT ads manager in India on 4 September, enabling businesses of all sizes to sign up and grow their business with daily budgets starting at INR 725, the brand announced.

Dave Dugan, vice president and head - global ads solutions, OpenAI, said, “India is one of the most dynamic markets in the world for how people use ChatGPT to learn, build, and discover. Our weekly active users have doubled year-on-year, with many of them going beyond simple searches and changing how they make decisions. They ask questions, explore options, and weigh tradeoffs through conversation. With ChatGPT Ads, businesses of every size can introduce themselves at relevant, high-context moments when decisions are beginning to take shape,” 

He further added,“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.”

OpenAI’s approach to advertising will be guided by five principles, according to the brand:

•    Ads do not influence ChatGPT’s answers. Answers are optimised around what is most helpful to the user.
•    Advertisers do not receive access to users’ chats, chat history, memories, or personal details. OpenAI does not sell user data to advertisers.
•    People can dismiss ads, provide feedback, understand why an ad was shown, manage personalisation, and clear the data used for advertising.
•    Advertising helps support broader access to capable AI through high-quality free and lower-cost options.
•    OpenAI prioritises user trust and the quality of the ChatGPT experience over maximising time spent or short-term advertising revenue.