OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT Ads into Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, bringing its advertising product into a wider set of Asian markets.
The rollout follows earlier launches in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and India. OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads are now available in more than 60 countries.
TNGlobal reported earlier this week that adtech company Equativ had become a technology partner for ChatGPT Ads, including campaign support in Japan. The new expansion moves beyond partner access by opening more Southeast Asian markets directly to advertisers.
Self-service access expands
Eligible businesses in the newly supported markets can use OpenAI’s Ads Manager to set up campaigns directly. OpenAI is also working with agency groups including dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe and WPP.
The self-service model lowers the entry barrier for smaller advertisers that may not work through large agency groups. That could make the platform relevant not only to multinational brands but also to startups and small businesses testing conversational advertising for the first time.
OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days, with tens of thousands of advertisers using the platform globally. The company announced that milestone on August 31.
Ads remain separate from answers
OpenAI said ads do not influence ChatGPT’s responses and that advertisers do not receive access to users’ private conversations. Ads are labeled and displayed separately from the assistant’s answers.
Ads are shown to eligible users on Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans remain ad-free.
That separation will be important as advertising expands into markets where users increasingly rely on AI assistants for research, product comparison and purchase decisions. The business opportunity comes from reaching people while they are actively exploring a topic, but the model depends on maintaining a clear boundary between sponsored placement and the assistant’s generated response.
Southeast Asia becomes a test market for conversational ads
The new availability gives advertisers in six Southeast Asian markets a direct route into a format that differs from conventional search and social advertising. A single conversation can move from broad discovery to comparison and purchase consideration without following a traditional search-results page or feed.
That creates new questions around creative design, measurement and attribution. Marketers will need to determine whether conversational ads produce incremental demand or simply shift spending from existing search, social and retail-media channels.
For Southeast Asian businesses, the rollout also means that performance data will begin accumulating across markets with different languages, consumer behaviors and digital advertising ecosystems. Those results will help show how well conversational advertising travels beyond the initial markets where ChatGPT Ads launched.
Featured image: Tim Witzdam on Unsplash
Equativ becomes ChatGPT Ads technology partner, including Japan rollout