ChatGPT Ads Reaches Southeast Asia and Taiwan: 7 Markets and 4 Ways to Buy

The page that decides who can buy changed within a day

A growth lead at a skincare brand registered in Singapore reads OpenAI's announcement over breakfast on Thursday, September 24, local time. She clicks through to the page that decides who can buy. On the copy of that page the Internet Archive saved late on September 23, UTC, Singapore is not on the list.

Within a day, it was. OpenAI has not published the hour its announcement went live, so how long the two pages disagreed, if they did, is not on record; PPC Land notes that "OpenAI has not published local activation times, and neither source names a clock time."

On September 23, 2026, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Ads is beginning to roll out in seven more markets. Its own sentence: "Starting today, ChatGPT Ads will begin rolling out across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan." The same post says the product "is now available in more than 60 countries."

The map is the headline, and it is the least useful part for anyone planning a budget. What an advertiser in Jakarta, Manila or Taipei needs is narrower: who will see the ads, which of the four buying routes applies to them, what the self-serve eligibility rule actually says, and which operational questions the announcement leaves open. That is what this post covers. If you are new to the channel, how to run ChatGPT Ads walks through account review, goals and targeting, and none of that is repeated here.

What OpenAI announced on September 23

The announcement is short. Three parts of it matter for a regional plan.

Seven markets, in OpenAI's words

The seven new markets are:

• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• the Philippines
• Singapore
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Taiwan

OpenAI places them in sequence: "This announcement follows Asia Pacific launches in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and India." So for a brand already running in Sydney, Tokyo or Mumbai, the new markets extend a region it may already buy in.

The date has a small wrinkle. The newsroom post is dated September 23, while Marketing-Interactive, according to PPC Land, "gave September 24 as the start date for the region." PPC Land explains the gap this way: "The difference is consistent with the time zones separating the US West Coast from Southeast Asia." Same event, two calendars.

The verb matters more than the date. OpenAI wrote "begin rolling out," and that is how to read it: a rollout that starts on a day, not a switch that flips for every account and every user at once.

"More than 60 countries" is OpenAI's count

The 60-country figure is OpenAI's own count, and this post does not try to rebuild the list behind it. PPC Land did the counting from OpenAI's availability page, which it says "listed 63 countries when PPC Land retrieved it on September 24." The same outlet puts the pace in one line: "Nine markets on August 17 became 63 listed countries on September 23, a span of 37 days."

That pace is the practical point. A market list that grows by dozens in five weeks is a list to check on the day you plan, not one to copy into a deck.

Where the channel stands, seven months in

Four dated markers frame the launch:

• February 9, 2026: the start date in OpenAI's Help Center, which says "We're beginning this test in the US on February 9, 2026."
• End of August: OpenAI says it announced then that "ChatGPT Ads had reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days after launch."
• September 23: the same post says "Tens of thousands of advertisers are now running ads in ChatGPT."
• The next few months: OpenAI writes that "we will continue to expand into new markets, build new formats, optimization tools, and measurement solutions."

For context on the last big wave, the European launch in August arrived with its own constraints, covered in ChatGPT Ads in 31 European markets.

Who will see the ads in the seven markets

The audience rule is global, and OpenAI restates it for the new markets without changes.

Free and Go users, and nobody on a higher plan

The announcement is direct: "As in our existing markets, ads will be shown only to users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, and Enterprise subscriptions will remain ad-free."

OpenAI's Help Center FAQ, as archived on September 19, goes further on who is excluded:

• More ad-free plans: "Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts will not have ads."
• An age rule: "We do not show ads to accounts identified as belonging to users under 18, based on account-level age information and age prediction where available."

So the reachable audience is adults on the two lower consumer tiers. In markets where many users sit on those plans, that is most of the audience; in a market full of workplace accounts, it is less of it.

The conversations ads stay out of

Placement has limits beyond the plan. The Help Center says:

• Sensitive topics: "Ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics, including personal health, mental health, or politics."
• Political ads: OpenAI says "we currently do not allow political advertising in ChatGPT."
• Temporary Chats: "Temporary Chats will not show ads."

For a health, supplements or financial brand in the region, that first rule shapes where the ads can run more than any targeting setting will.

What people on the other side can switch off

Users get controls, and advertisers see performance in aggregate. The Help Center lists both sides:

• Personalization: people can "Turn off ad personalization at any time."
• Ads-Free on the Free plan: switching to it "removes ads, but comes with lower usage limits and reduced feature access."
• What advertisers receive: advertisers "only receive aggregated, non-identifying information about how their ads perform, such as total views or clicks."

How much of the audience actually carries ads, by category, is the subject of our read of ChatGPT ad load; that data is from the US and does not transfer automatically.

The four doors OpenAI names for buying

OpenAI lists the routes in two sentences: "Advertisers can access ChatGPT Ads through the OpenAI Ads Solutions team, agency partners including dentsu, Havas Media, Omnicom Media, Publicis Groupe and WPP, and technology partners." Then: "Self-service access through Ads Manager" is also "available for eligible businesses."

That is four doors, and they suit different buyers:

Route	Who it suits	Check first
Ads Solutions team	Larger, complex budgets	The sales contact form
Agency partners	Brands with a holding-company agency	Which office runs it
Technology partners	Teams buying through a platform	Coverage of these markets
Self-serve Ads Manager	Eligible businesses	Your legal entity's country

The Ads Solutions team and the agency roster

The managed route is where OpenAI points its largest accounts. OpenAI's availability page says "Larger advertisers with more complex needs can contact the OpenAI Ads team to discuss sales support."

The agency list has five names. PPC Land notes that "That roster runs one name longer than the four holding companies PPC Land recorded when India went live, with Havas Media the addition." For a regional brand, the useful question to an agency is not whether the network is a partner, since it is named, but which office will actually run the account for these markets.

Technology partners, the least specific door

The announcement refers to technology partners as a group. PPC Land flags the open question for regional buyers: "Whether Criteo, StackAdapt, Kargo, Adobe and Pacvue can route budgets into the seven new markets is not stated in either announcement."

If you buy through a platform, ask your platform whether it can send budget to these seven markets before you assume it can.

Self-serve, for eligible businesses

This is the door most mid-sized advertisers will try first, and it has a rule. OpenAI's availability page, as archived on September 23, says: "the legal entity that will advertise and be billed must be based in a country listed as available below."

Two consequences follow:

• The rule follows the company that pays, not the audience. PPC Land puts it plainly: "Access depends on where the buyer is incorporated, not where the audience sits."
• An account is not access. The same page says "Account creation and self-service availability are separate: access depends on your country," and the Help Center adds that "Creating an account does not give you access before your country is supported."

Then there is the timing, and two readings of the same page hours apart:

• The archived capture, 22:45 UTC on September 23: it shows the note "Updated: 5 days ago" and 56 countries marked available, none of them among the seven new markets.
• PPC Land's reading, September 24: the page carried "an update stamp from three hours earlier," and "All seven new markets were marked as available for self-service."

Our reading: the list changed within about a day, and it will keep moving. Look up your own entity's country on the day you open the account, and treat "eligible businesses" as a condition to verify, not a promise.

An earlier launch shows why the check matters. PPC Land reports:

• India, August 29: "Indian advertisers started on August 29 with ads running and no self-service door."
• Two days later: "OpenAI then opened self-service purchasing across India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa on August 31."

Shopee's quote, and the AI answers already in the region

The announcement carries one outside voice, and it is a marketplace.

What Shopee's statement says

Peggy Zhu, Executive Director of Brand and Growth Marketing at Shopee, is quoted in OpenAI's post: "OpenAI is a valued strategic partner for Shopee as we explore how AI can enhance the e-commerce experience for buyers while supporting sellers in growing their businesses."

She then places the partnership in time: "Following the launch of ChatGPT Ads in Brazil, we are pleased to extend this collaboration to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, marking another step in our deepening partnership with OpenAI." PPC Land adds context: "Shopee runs marketplaces in each of the seven markets as well as in Brazil."

That is what the quote says. Our reading, not OpenAI's: this is a statement about a relationship and a direction. A seller should not plan around a marketplace integration until OpenAI or Shopee documents one.

Shopee is on Google's list too

The partnership is not exclusive in any visible sense. PPC Land reports that "Google said on March 24, 2026 that eligible brands would soon be able to activate commerce audiences from Asian marketplaces including Shopee and PChome directly in Google Ads."

Google's AI answers carry ads in four of the seven

ChatGPT is not the first AI answer engine to sell ads here. PPC Land notes that Google "rolled out ads in AI Overviews to 11 additional countries on December 19, 2025, a list that included Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore." In its words, "For a regional search team, ChatGPT arrives as a second AI answer surface rather than the first."

For a team in those four markets, that is a useful frame: budget for a second test, and compare it with what the first AI surface already returned.

What to confirm before you plan a campaign in the region

The announcement answers who and how. Four operational questions sit underneath it, and each one can stall a launch.

Billing currency and minimum spend

Currency is the first thing to confirm. PPC Land reports on a Minimum Campaign Spend table documented on August 21:

• What it held: it "listed floors in ten billing currencies, from 25 US dollars to 725 Indian rupees."
• What it lacked then: "No Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine, Singaporean, Thai, Vietnamese or Taiwanese currency appeared in it at that point."

That was five weeks before the launch, so it may have changed. Check what currency your account bills in before finance approves a budget in local money.

Language, in the ad and in the conversation

The seven markets bring a lot of scripts, and three facts bear on them:

• The languages: PPC Land lists them: "The seven new markets add Indonesian, Malay, Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese and Taiwan's Traditional Chinese script, alongside the multilingual mix of Singapore."
• How an ad's language is chosen: OpenAI's Help Center says "An ad's language may differ from your conversation or interface language. Ad language selection can consider location, language settings, and conversation language."
• Opt-in translation: OpenAI's September 16 post describes a setting that "automatically translates ad copy to a user's preferred language," covered in our read of the September 16 tools.

A practical rule: write the copy in the language you sell in, then test translation as a setting, not as your localization plan.

App measurement and local privacy rules

The web measurement mechanics are covered in how conversion bidding bills and what automatic advanced matching reads. Whether all of it applies here on day one is open: PPC Land writes that "Neither Asian announcement says whether every one of those settings is available in the seven markets from the first day." App measurement is narrower. PPC Land reports that "AppsFlyer and Adjust went live in July as integrated partners for campaigns in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea. None of the new Asian markets is on that list."

Privacy law differs by market too. PPC Land notes two of them:

• Vietnam: "Vietnam issued Decree 356/2025/ND-CP on December 31, 2025."
• Indonesia: "Indonesia has published a 225-article implementing regulation for its 2022 data protection statute, with fines of up to 2% of revenue, applying from January 2027."

Have counsel look at your consent setup before a Vietnamese or Indonesian launch, not after.

The Shopify app date

OpenAI's September 16 post set a date that lands on the same day as this launch: "The app will be available internationally in markets where ChatGPT Ads are available starting September 23." That is a schedule, not a confirmation for any given store. Check your own store's listing, and read the Shopify app setup before you connect a catalog.

The creative the ad unit asks for

None of the four doors changes what you actually put in front of people.

Text and one image

OpenAI's Help Center, as captured on September 3, says "Ads appear below ChatGPT responses," and lists what each ad includes: the advertiser name, a favicon, a "Title (headline)," "Copy (description)," a landing page and an "Image asset (creative)."

That is the unit the Help Center describes: short text around one image asset. OpenAI's own forward-looking line is that it will "build new formats" in the coming months. Plan for text and an image today, and treat any new format as upside when it is documented.

A worked example across three markets

Take a skincare brand whose legal entity is registered in Singapore, entering Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam through self-serve once its country shows as available.

• Three campaigns, one per market. Spend and results stay readable per country.
• One landing page per market, in the local language. The destination stays constant, so the image is the variable.
• Four image treatments per market. Texture close-up, product in hand, a morning routine scene, the bottle on a bathroom shelf that looks like a home in that city.
• Two headline promises per image. Vary the promise, not the phrasing.

That is 3 markets × 4 images × 2 headlines = 24 ads, before a single one has been proven. Doubling to eight images per market makes it 48.

Why variant supply is the constraint here

Seven markets and six-plus languages multiply everything. The headline and the description can be rewritten in minutes; the image is where production time goes, and a scene that reads as local in Bangkok can look foreign in Taipei.

This is the stance we would take into the region: the advertisers who win early will not be the ones with the cleverest copy. They will be the ones with enough distinct, local-looking images to let the auction pick.

How Novoads solves the image side of a regional ChatGPT campaign

Novoads makes ad creative; it does not buy or place ChatGPT ads, so the campaign itself runs through Ads Manager or one of OpenAI's partners.

What Novoads covers is the image workload above. You upload a product photo and generate ad images from it, so four or eight treatments per market come from one source file instead of a shoot per country. The same product photo also feeds UGC-style video ads for the channels where video is the unit, which keeps one asset library serving ChatGPT, Meta and TikTok. If you want to try that on your own product, you can start in Novoads; plans are listed on the pricing page.

In Southeast Asia, the account is the easy part

The seven markets arrived with an audience rule copied from everywhere else, four ways to buy, and an eligibility table that changed within a day. What the announcement cannot hand you is the rest: the currency, the languages, the measurement partner, and the pictures.

Buying access is being solved by OpenAI, market by market. Creative supply, in six-plus languages and seven local settings, is the part only the advertiser can solve.