ChatGPT Ads Hit $1 Billion Faster Than Google Ever Did

Ads inside ChatGPT are now bringing in money at a pace equal to $1 billion a year, OpenAI said in a Monday announcement, a milestone the company reached less than 200 days after launching the ad product.

OpenAI is guiding toward $2.5 billion in booked ad revenue for the full year, a pace it took Google’s ad business roughly four years to reach, Forbes reported. The milestone comes as OpenAI opens ChatGPT’s self-service ad system to more of the world. Starting Monday, businesses in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa can buy ads directly, regions that previously required going to an agency or partner. Ads are now available in more than 40 countries, and OpenAI said advertisers outside the U.S. account for a growing share of total ad revenue, with many of its largest clients now running campaigns across several countries at once.

Tens of thousands of businesses are now advertising on the platform, and OpenAI has told investors its ad business could grow to $100 billion a year by 2030, up from the $2.5 billion projected for this year, PYMNTS reported.

Why ChatGPT Ads Work Differently

That ChatGPT ads can target so precisely comes down to what the system already knows about a person in the moment. “People come to ChatGPT with clear goals,” OpenAI wrote. “They explain what they want to accomplish, what matters to them, and the constraints they face.” A search ad only knows the words someone typed, like “running shoes.” A social media ad guesses at interest by watching what someone scrolls past.

A ChatGPT ad can draw on an actual conversation where a person has already explained a specific need, a preference and a budget, putting the ad much closer to the moment someone decides to buy than either alternative gets.

OpenAI has also built out the basic tools advertisers expect from any serious ad platform: the ability to pay only when someone clicks, track whether an ad led to a sale and target specific groups of customers. One online retailer told OpenAI in its announcement that it made three times its ad spend back within 28 days, and a technology partner said more than 80% of the traffic ChatGPT ads sent its way came from brand-new customers, not people who already knew the brand. That is an early sign the ads might be creating new demand rather than just redirecting clicks that would have happened anyway.

Advertisers Are Betting on ChatGPT’s Massive Audience

That growth rests on an audience advertisers already can’t ignore. Eighty percent of people who use AI tools have tried ChatGPT at least once, far more than Google Gemini at 48% or Microsoft Copilot at 30%, and roughly 4 in 10 consumers now count as “mainstream” or “power” AI users, meaning they use it often and for many different things, according to PYMNTS Intelligence.

ChatGPT’s share of consumer product research climbed from 2% to 30% over two years, according to PYMNTS Intelligence July 2026 Databook.

Taken together, those numbers point to the same underlying shift: ChatGPT has moved from a tool people used to ask questions into a place where buying decisions actually start, and OpenAI is betting its advertising business can grow as fast as that shift does.

Whether the $1 billion pace holds up, or whether it reflects an early rush of advertisers testing something new before deciding if it’s worth a permanent piece of their budget, is the question that will determine if ChatGPT becomes a durable rival to Google and Meta in advertising, or just another platform advertisers tried once.

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