ChatGPT ads
in India.

The key facts

Launched in India

Thursday, 27 August 2026 (Issue No. 07)

Who sees ads

Logged-in adults on the Free tier and the ₹399-a-month Go tier

Where ads appear

Below ChatGPT’s response, clearly labelled

How to buy

Self-serve Ads Manager since 4 September 2026, with a ₹725 daily minimum, or through agency partners. WPP and Omnicom were the first in India.

Brands at launch

More than 50

India’s size for ChatGPT

Its second-largest market, with 100 million-plus weekly users, doubling year on year

How it rolled out

1. July 2026OpenAI expands its ads pilot beyond the US, testing in the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea. Criteo counts 2,000+ brands running live campaigns. (Issue No. 01)
2. Late JulyOpenAI adds location, audience and negative-keyword exclusions, plus attributed sales value and sales ROAS reporting. (Issue No. 02)
3. Mid AugustOpenAI confirms ChatGPT Ads has launched in those five markets. Ads are matched to a conversation’s topic and a user’s past chats, not sold on demographic data. (Issue No. 05)
4. 24 AugustAds switch on in 31 European markets, taking the total to 40 countries and the ad business to nearly a $1 billion annualised run rate. Europe launches without personalised targeting, sold through agency partners such as Publicis, WPP and Omnicom. (Issue No. 06)
5. 27 AugustAds go live in India, with more than 50 brands in the first week. (Issue No. 07)
6. 4 SeptemberThe self-serve Ads Manager opens to Indian advertisers, with a ₹725 daily minimum. (Issue No. 07)
7. SeptemberAmazon starts selling ChatGPT ads to a select group of US advertisers through its own ad platform. (Issue No. 09)
8. Week of 21 SeptemberKFC India becomes the first quick-service restaurant brand in India to advertise inside ChatGPT, with WPP Media, promoting its ₹99 Chicken Krisper Meal. Mamaearth and Sebamed run their own campaigns the same week. (Issue No. 10)

What it means for your brand

• An ad will not put you in the answer

  ChatGPT ads sit below the response, labelled and separate from it. Being recommended is a different job. On Google’s AI Mode, an SE Ranking study found that for 88% of keywords where an advertiser’s ad appeared, its own site was not among the cited sources (Issue No. 02). Plan the ad budget and the AI-visibility budget as two line items.

• Most Indian brands are not visible to AI yet

  DareAISearch ran 59,620 prompts against 2,981 Indian brands. The average brand scored 30 out of 100 on AI visibility, and only 19.3% cleared the bar for high visibility (Issue No. 05).

• The ₹725 minimum is the real test

  Self-serve buying decides whether this is a channel for 50 large launch brands or for every business (Issue No. 07).

• Treat early performance numbers with care

  Comscore reported sponsored presence in hotel-related ChatGPT prompts rising from 6% in March to 24% in May. That is one category on one platform, from a company selling the measurement product (Issue No. 08).

• Measure AI traffic separately

  GA4 now reports an “AI Assistant” channel for visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini (Issue No. 02). Brainlabs found traffic from AI assistants rose 163% and completed key actions at about 1.5 times the rate of organic search (Issue No. 07).

• Buying inside the chat is starting too

  GoKwik and PayU launched multi-brand shopping inside ChatGPT, with checkout by UPI or card. Hyphen, Beardo and Kilrr Spices were among the first brands (Issue No. 03).

Common questions

Sources

Every fact here was first reported in the Weekly SMIK Signal. Each issue linked above lists its original sources.