OpenAI scales ChatGPT ads to 26 countries with 100,000 active advertisers

The 100,000 advertiser figure is a vanity metric without a revenue denominator attached. What matters more is that geographic expansion into 26 new markets arrives just days after 404 Media reported that ChatGPT Ads targets users by phone number, email, and device identifiers, meaning OpenAI is scaling a targeting infrastructure that most users in those new markets have never consented to in any meaningful way.

The timing here is hard to ignore. Our coverage from October 15 of '404 Media's reporting on ChatGPT's prompt-based and identifier-based targeting' established that the ad platform's data practices were already opaque to subscribers before this expansion. Rolling out to 26 additional countries compounds that exposure without any visible policy update. Separately, the eight-state lawsuit covered here from October 14 shows that OpenAI is already under coordinated legal pressure over consumer protection failures. Expanding an ad platform with contested data practices into new regulatory jurisdictions, some of which have stricter privacy frameworks than the U.S., adds a compliance surface that the announcement does not acknowledge.

Watch whether any of the 26 new markets include EU member states, which would put the targeting infrastructure directly under GDPR enforcement scrutiny. If a data protection authority opens an inquiry within the next six months, that will test whether this revenue line is actually defensible at scale.