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OpenAI will start showing advertisements to users of its free and low-cost ChatGPT tiers across Europe from Aug. 24, extending a monetization plan first introduced in the United States earlier this year, the company said late Tuesday.
The rollout follows an initial U.S. launch of ads in February. OpenAI is now giving advertisers access to users in 31 European countries.
Ads will appear on the free service and for subscribers to the Go tier, who pay €8 ($9.30) a month in Europe. Premium subscription tiers, used by a small percentage of OpenAI's nearly 1 billion users, will remain ad-free.
In a statement, OpenAI said the expansion gives “marketers across Europe a new way to reach people while they are actively exploring, comparing, and making decisions.”
The company said conversations would remain private from advertisers and that it would not sell customer data. It added that ads “are always clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT's answers, and advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides”
Critics have said the move risks users distrusting ChatGPT's responses if they perceive advertiser influence in the content. Anthropic, by contrast, has positioned its own ad-free policy as a distinguishing feature of its products.
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