OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrives at the White House in Washington, DC, USA for a conference, July 30, 2026.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
OpenAI announced Monday that its advertising business has reached a $1 billion annual revenue run rate, a milestone the company touts as evidence of its “diversified business model.”
The artificial intelligence company is gearing up for what is expected to be a major IPO and is under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation to investors. OpenAI said Monday that its roughly 200-day-old advertising business is built on existing revenue engines, including enterprise services, consumer subscriptions, and usage-based application programming interfaces.
OpenAI began testing ads within its ChatGPT chatbot in the US in February, a highly anticipated and controversial decision. Digital advertising has long been a cash cow for other big tech companies like Google and Meta, but OpenAI’s move was derided by arch-rival Anthropic, which pushed OpenAI’s ads into the focus of its first Super Bowl campaign.
ChatGPT ads are currently available in more than 40 countries, and OpenAI announced on Monday that it will be rolling out self-service access across India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Ads within the chatbot are targeted to OpenAI’s Go subscribers and their free tiers. These subscribers make up the majority of our 1 billion weekly active users.
OpenAI said Monday that its ads are clearly labeled and do not influence ChatGPT responses. Advertisers do not have access to your private conversations.
“Our next phase of growth will bring ChatGPT ads to more markets and introduce additional formats, objectives, purchasing options, and measurement capabilities,” OpenAI said in a release. “We will also explore new ways for businesses to interact with consumers in a more native way with ChatGPT.”
—CNBC’s Kate Rooney contributed to this report
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