ChatGPT ads: what's live in the GCC and who it's for

ChatGPT ads are now open to businesses across the GCC. Since 16 September 2026, a company registered in the UAE or Saudi Arabia can set up an account, load a card and run sponsored ads under ChatGPT’s answers, the same way businesses in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar could a couple of weeks earlier.

This is what is live, what it costs, who is allowed to advertise, and how we would test it.

The short version

• Live for self-serve in all 6 GCC countries since September 2026.
• Shown under ChatGPT’s answers, to adults on the Free and Go plans only.
• Starts from AED 65, SAR 50 or QAR 70 a day.
• Good for ecommerce, travel, education, apps and local services.
• Banks, clinics, legal services and property listings cannot advertise here yet.

What are ChatGPT ads?

They are sponsored cards that appear under ChatGPT’s answer, matched to what the person is asking about. Each one has a title, a short description, an image and a link to your site. They are labeled as sponsored, kept separate from the answer, and shown only to adults on the Free and Go plans.

OpenAI started testing them in the US on 9 February 2026. By 31 August it said the business had reached a $1 billion annualized run rate in under 200 days, with tens of thousands of advertisers. OpenAI says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people a week.

What makes it different from search ads is how an ad gets picked. There are no keywords to bid on. The system reads the context and intent of the conversation, your ad and your targeting. Then it ranks the eligible ads on relevance and bid. Someone planning a recipe might see a grocery delivery ad. Someone comparing laptops might see a retailer.

Advertisers never get the conversation. They see views, clicks and conversions in aggregate, and that is all.

Where do ChatGPT ads appear?

Today, almost always in one place: directly below a ChatGPT response, in the app on iPhone and Android, on mobile web and on desktop. OpenAI is also testing ads next to images people generate, and ads that open a chat with the brand, but both of those are US only for now.

Just as useful is where they do not appear. No ads for paying subscribers on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu. No ads for anyone ChatGPT believes is under 18. No ads near conversations about health, mental health or politics, none in Temporary Chats, and none in OpenAI’s Atlas browser during the test.

People on the Free plan can also switch ads off in exchange for fewer messages. So your audience is people who chose free ChatGPT and kept the ads on.

What is new in ChatGPT ads as of October 2026?

A lot, in eight months. OpenAI went from a US test with a reported $200,000 minimum to self-serve buying in more than 60 countries, with daily budgets small enough for a local business. The newest pieces are image ads, chat ads that talk back, and tools that write the ad for you.

• February: US test starts. Trade press reported a $60 cost per 1,000 views and a $200,000 minimum commitment.
• May: the self-serve tool opens to small businesses, and cost per click bidding arrives.
• August: UK, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, India and 31 European markets go live. Self-serve opens for Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa.
• 16 September: UAE and Saudi Arabia join the self-serve list. OpenAI also announces Sponsored Agents, where a user can chat with a brand’s own AI after seeing its ad, plus an opt-in setting that adapts and translates ad copy, and new HubSpot and Shopify integrations.
• 23 September: seven Asian markets added, taking it past 60 countries. The Shopify app opens to every market where the ads run.
• 5 October: image ads beside AI generated images, tested in the US from later this month, plus more measurement partners and, for qualifying advertisers, a list of phrases to keep your ads away from.

Sponsored Agents and image ads are not in the GCC yet. The standard cards are.

Are ChatGPT ads live in the GCC?

Yes, in all six countries. OpenAI’s Ads Manager availability list marks the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as available for self-serve. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were the last two in, on 16 September 2026. The other four were on by early September.

Three conditions catch people out.

1. The paying company must be registered in a listed country. It is the legal entity on the invoice that counts, not where the ads run.
2. New accounts may start in their home country only. Other countries open after identity verification and some spend at home. OpenAI does not publish how much. If you planned one account for the whole Gulf, plan a home market phase first.
3. The billing currency is set when you open the account and generally cannot be changed later. Pick it on purpose.

How much do ChatGPT ads cost?

There is no price list. You bid in an auction and choose how to pay: per 1,000 views, per click, or with conversion optimization, which is still billed on clicks or views. OpenAI only fixes the floor, which is a daily budget of AED 65, SAR 50, QAR 70 or USD 25, depending on your billing currency.

In dollars, the Gulf floors are actually lower than a US account’s. A daily budget here is an average over seven days, not a hard daily cap. One day can spend up to twice the daily amount, but the week never goes over seven times it.

OpenAI has not published average costs per click. The benchmarks floating around online have no named source, so we are not repeating them.

The results OpenAI has shared are real, but picked by OpenAI. WeightWatchers saw a 15.3% lower cost per acquisition than its blended paid search. Portland Leather said 93% of the visitors from ChatGPT ads were new to the brand. Read those as proof it can work, not as what you will get.

Who are ChatGPT ads good for in the GCC?

Brands selling something a person would ask an assistant about before buying. Ecommerce, travel and hotels, education and courses, apps and software, and local services all fit, and OpenAI names most of these as allowed categories. A shop with a product catalog can let ChatGPT build ads straight from the feed.

The other half of the answer is who cannot. OpenAI’s ad policies say financial services and health services are generally prohibited outside the US, and legal services are prohibited outright. Individual property listings, dating, alcohol, gambling and political ads are banned everywhere.

In this region that rules out a big part of the market: banks, insurers, fintech, clinics, aesthetic clinics and property listing campaigns. If that is your business, keep an eye on the policy page, because OpenAI says the allowed list will grow.

What could a ChatGPT ad look like for a GCC brand?

These are made up examples, not real campaigns, but each one is the kind of conversation where a sponsored card fits naturally under the answer. The pattern is the same every time: the person is about to make a decision, and the ad offers one more option at that exact moment.

• Travel. A family in Riyadh asks ChatGPT to plan four days in Abha with two kids in winter. A resort or tour operator in the region shows up under the plan.
• Ecommerce. A student in Dubai asks for the best laptop for engineering under AED 4,000. An electronics retailer’s product card appears, built from its feed.
• Education. A parent in Doha asks how to help a nine year old with maths at home. An online tutoring platform appears below the tips.
• Blocked. Someone in Abu Dhabi asks which credit card gives the best cashback. No bank can appear there, because financial services cannot advertise outside the US.

How do you advertise on ChatGPT from the GCC?

Six steps, and the first one is checking that you are allowed. Then sign up, install tracking before you spend anything, start small in your home country, write several versions of the ad, and give it three to four weeks before you judge it. The setup is quick. Reading the results properly is the part that takes care.

1. Check eligibility. Your billed company is registered in a GCC country on the list, and your category is allowed.
2. Sign up at ads.openai.com and choose your billing currency carefully.
3. Install the OpenAI Pixel or the Conversions API, and make sure your site does not block OpenAI’s ad crawler, called OAI-AdsBot. Without tracking you will only see clicks. Our ad tracking guide covers why that matters.
4. Start with a Clicks campaign in your home country, at or a little above the minimum budget.
5. Write several titles and descriptions, each a different angle, not the same line reworded. If you sell online, use your product feed or the Shopify app instead.
6. Run it for three to four weeks, then judge it by what those visitors did, not by the cost per click.

Should GCC brands test ChatGPT ads now?

Yes, with a small budget. We push brands to try new channels as they grow, and to be early rather than late. If ChatGPT ads are not right for your brand, a few weeks at AED 65 a day will tell you, from your own numbers instead of somebody’s opinion.

Early has real advantages. Fewer advertisers usually means less competition in the auction, and you learn how your customers use ChatGPT before your competitors do.

Two cautions, though. A cheap click is not a good customer. Judge the test by sales or by lead quality from your CRM, the same way we judge Meta ad placements. And keep it as a test until the numbers earn it a bigger budget. The ads need to sit inside a plan, not replace one, which is the point of media buying in the first place.

If you want it set up and measured properly from day one, that is what we do, and what it costs.

Questions people actually ask

Are ChatGPT ads available in Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Saudi Arabia was added to OpenAI's self-serve list on 16 September 2026, together with the UAE. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar were already on it. The company paying for the ads has to be registered in a listed country, and the minimum daily budget for a Saudi riyal account is SAR 50.

How much do ChatGPT ads cost in the UAE?

There is no fixed price. You bid in an auction and pay per 1,000 views, per click, or through conversion optimization, which is still billed on clicks or views. What OpenAI does fix is the floor: an ad account billed in dirhams needs a daily budget of at least AED 65. You never pay per conversion.

Can banks or clinics in the GCC advertise on ChatGPT?

Not today. OpenAI's ad policies say financial services and health services are generally prohibited outside the US, and legal services are prohibited outright. Individual property listings, dating, alcohol, gambling and political ads are banned everywhere. A bank, an insurer or an aesthetic clinic in Dubai or Riyadh cannot run ChatGPT ads yet.

Do ChatGPT ads change ChatGPT's answers?

OpenAI says no. Ads run on systems separate from the model that writes the answer, they sit below the response, and they are labeled sponsored. Advertisers also never see what people type. They get views, clicks and conversions in aggregate, nothing from the conversation itself.

Can ChatGPT ads run in Arabic?

OpenAI's ad documentation does not mention Arabic at all. It has an opt-in setting that adapts your title and description to the conversation and translates them into the user's preferred language, but it has not said which languages that covers. Write your own Arabic version and test it rather than relying on the translation.

Who sees ChatGPT ads?

Logged in adults on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts see no ads, and neither does anyone ChatGPT believes is under 18. Ads are also kept away from conversations about health, mental health and politics, and they do not appear in Temporary Chats.