ChatGPT Ads · India
ChatGPT Ads are live
in India.
Live for Free and Go users live by 27-28 August 2026. Self-serve opened August 31, 2026 with budgets from ₹725 a day - and the auction will never be this quiet again.
Our observations, September 11–22, 2026
This is what a ChatGPT ad looks like
We ran 520 buyer-intent conversations through a logged-in Free account and recorded every paid unit that appeared: 140 placements from 83 advertisers across 47 verticals. Each one is saved with the screenshot, the ad copy, and the exact prompt that triggered it.
Ads sit below the answer, labelled Ad (product cards say Sponsored), one advertiser per response - and the advertiser is usually adjacent to the topic, not the brand the answer named.
- placements
- 140
- advertisers
- 83
- verticals
- 47
The timeline
August 27-28, 2026
Ads go live for adults on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans in India. OpenAI confirmed the rollout without naming a day; the announcement was dated 26 August.
Launch week
50+ brands were expected to go live in launch week. WPP and Omnicom were the first agency partners for the India launch.
August 31, 2026
Self-serve Ads Manager opens to any Indian business - OpenAI announced self-service access launching across India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Minimum daily budget: ₹725. No agency required.
September 1, 2026
OpenAI reports a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate for ChatGPT ads in under 200 days, a pace, not booked revenue (exchange4media, 1 September 2026). Our comments ran in the same piece.
October 5, 2026
Razorpay partners with OpenAI to sell ChatGPT Ads to Indian brands through Razorpay Engage, which prepares catalogues, runs campaigns and tracks performance (exchange4media, 9 October 2026). OpenAI introduces a visual ad format, tested first in image-generation queries (Forbes India, 8 October 2026).
Source: OpenAI newsroom (31 August 2026); Storyboard18 and TechCrunch (27 August 2026). Our co-founder Viren Inaniyan, in The Hindu BusinessLine on the launch: “Brands cannot buy influence over ChatGPT's answers.”
The pre-launch checklist
01
Run the ten-question test
Type ten questions your buyers actually ask into ChatGPT. If you're already recommended, an ad is a top-up. If you're not, you'd be renting a slot next to someone else's win.
02
Budget time for verification
Business details, tax information, identity verification, billing and an account logo all gate serving, and Indian advertisers have reported accounts sitting in review for 5-7 days with a card authorisation hold in place (OpenAI developer forum, September 2026). Start the account before you need it.
03
Install conversion tracking first
The OpenAI pixel plus a lead or purchase conversion event, linked to the campaign. Attribution only looks backward from the event - clicks before the pixel existed are gone.
04
Write context hints, not keywords
5-15 plain-language descriptions per ad group of the buyer moments you want: who is asking, what they're weighing, what they need. There is no keyword bidding.
05
Mind the ad-free majority
Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users never see ads. For your most premium buyers, the organic recommendation is the only shelf - which is why the earned layer comes first.
06
Model the budget
What does ₹725, ₹2,000, or ₹5,000 a day actually buy? Run the numbers.
Open the cost calculatorIndia questions
Yes - live by 27-28 August 2026 for Free and Go users. More than 50 brands were expected to go live in launch week (Storyboard18, 27 August 2026); no post-hoc count has been published. WPP and Omnicom were named first agency partners for the launch.
Self-serve opened on August 31, 2026, when OpenAI announced self-service access launching across India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Daily budgets start at ₹725. No agency is required - the September 4 date pre-announced on August 27 was superseded.
No. They were the first agency partners for the India launch wave - both were already global ChatGPT Ads partners from February 2026 - and since 31 August 2026 any Indian business can run campaigns directly through Ads Manager at ₹725/day minimum.
OpenAI has made its Go tier free in India for a period, which expanded the ad-eligible audience - ads show only on Free and Go plans. That free-tier push is part of why India became an ads market (press reporting, 2026).
Deeper reads: six weeks in, on the record, how to run ChatGPT ads in India, what they cost, and agency vs self-serve.
See your organic layer in 24 hours
Before the auction opens, know where you stand in the answers themselves. The free Citation Rank scan shows whether ChatGPT already recommends your brand - and what to fix if it doesn't.
Rather poke at it yourself first? The scan is self-serve and free.
Run the scan yourself →no card · free