Industry AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-28

ChatGPT's biggest user base outside the US is about to start seeing ads — and the entry price for advertisers is ₹725 a day

OpenAI began showing advertisements to logged-in adults on ChatGPT's Free and Go tiers in India on Thursday 27 August 2026, its third market after the United States in February and Europe earlier this month. India is ChatGPT's largest user base outside the US, with more than 100 million weekly active users; the Go tier costs ₹399 a month there, and Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education subscribers stay ad-free. The ads sit at the bottom of a response, are labelled and visually separated from the answer, and are withheld from accounts marked as under 18 or judged to belong to minors, and from conversations about health, mental health or politics. OpenAI says advertisers cannot see chats, chat history, memories or personal details, and that it does not sell user data. More than 50 brands were due to go live this week through the agency groups WPP and Omnicom; a self-serve ChatGPT Ads Manager opens in India on 4 September with daily budgets starting at ₹725, about $8. The company reported $6.7 billion in revenue in the second quarter and is heading towards a public listing.

Why it mattersThe free tier of a chatbot was always going to be paid for by someone. What changes here is the shape of the bargain: a system people ask about work, money and family now has a commercial slot inside its answer, and the guardrails — labelling, no ads on health or politics, no advertiser access to your chats — are company policy rather than law. India is the test at scale. Whatever the ad format settles into there, with 100 million weekly users to tune against, is what the rest of the world will get.

✓ Verified · 3 sources

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ChatGPT's biggest user base outside the US is about to start seeing ads — and the entry price for advertisers is ₹725 a day

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