ChatGPT Ads to roll out in 31 new markets as OpenAI heads toward IPO

OpenAI’s ads business is expanding.

Next week, ChatGPT ads will roll out in 31 new markets, including Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, and Austria, according to the company. It comes on the heels of the expansion of ChatGPT Ads in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea earlier this month.

The continued international expansion comes after OpenAI recorded more than 25% growth in daily ad revenue since the start of August, Colin Fleming, OpenAI’s business CMO, told reporters during a briefing Tuesday.

Fleming, who is roughly 80 days into his role, also detailed his broader approach to enterprise marketing as the company continues to build out its advertising business and push for adoption of its tools across industries.

“There’s three motions that we’re focused on,” Fleming said. “We’re focusing on usefulness for the end customers…Then the advertising utility, of course, and then revenue.”

Target audiences

When it comes to enterprise marketing, there are three core audiences OpenAI is courting with its messaging, according to Fleming. Those include knowledge workers who could use its ChatGPT Work agent, developers and other technical staff who could use its Codex agent, and business decision-makers.

OpenAI is also considering rolling out “specific products or environments that may be more relevant for those audiences” in an effort to appeal to a wider swath of verticals and showing up at industry-specific events as it customizes its marketing, Fleming said.

At the same time, it’s simultaneously building out its marketing teams, with recent job postings in international markets like Japan and South Korea. It also has posted open roles focused on conveying its efforts around AI safety.

As he builds out his marketing team, Fleming said he is especially interested in bringing on marketers with “intellectual curiosity” as AI may provide them with new ways to test ideas.

“I do believe that the space between idea and execution has really collapsed, and I think it’s allowing marketers to participate in engineering and to develop a prototype,” he said.

See it to believe it

As it grows its ads business, OpenAI is aiming to reach its core target audiences through paid media campaigns, Fleming said. That has included a campaign promoting ChatGPT Images that first debuted in June in cities like Miami; a second edition of the campaign, he said Tuesday, will roll out in coming weeks.

OpenAI is also leaning into experiential marketing, including hosting a lounge at Cannes Lions’s Crestor Beach with AI companies like Vercel and ElevenLabs in June. OpenAI is also facilitating Builder Lounges, which are coworking events where attendees can learn more about OpenAI products, in cities like London and Berlin.

More broadly, the brand has also tested out influencer marketing on the consumer side, including through its first-ever influencer brand trip this summer that was poorly received by many observers.

As for what’s next, Fleming hinted that the company could be moving into performance marketing soon.

“As we have entered into the enterprise space more deliberately as a company, it’s very clear that speaking the language of the customer is more important than ever before,” he said. To that end, the company has been “focusing on delivering more value propositions and more clarity and positioning for how companies think about deploying something like ChatGPT Work or API business inside their organizations,” he said.

OpenAI’s international ads expansion comes at an inflection point for the company, which is aiming to IPO as soon as Q4 with a valuation of $852 billion. The company is also navigating substantial executive turnover, including the departures of its CRO, former COO, and product and business chief in recent months.