ChatGPT Ads hits $1B annualised as the EU brings it under the Digital Services Act

OpenAI says ChatGPT Ads has reached $1B in annualised revenue run rate in under 200 days and has opened self-service buying across Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa. On the same day the European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, on 159.1 million declared monthly users in the EU.

ChatGPT’s advertising business has reached $1B in annualised revenue in under 200 days. Self-service buying opens across Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa, OpenAI said.

The purpose it gives for this is a free tier. Advertising sits alongside subscriptions, enterprise deals and paid API access, funding a free ChatGPT for more than a billion weekly users.

The same day brought something OpenAI did not mention. The European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, Euronews reported.

The number that triggered it is 159.1 million. That is ChatGPT’s declared average of monthly active users in the EU, against a designation threshold of 45 million.

Europe was already being sold to. TNW reported this month that ChatGPT ads were reaching 31 European countries through OpenAI’s own sales team and its partners.

What changed today is who can buy. Ads Manager lets any business purchase directly, which is how small and medium companies enter a market previously run through agencies.

One obligation lands squarely on that. Designated platforms and search engines must keep a public advertisement repository, the Commission’s guidance says.

It has to hold a year of history after an ad last runs. Content, who paid, the period it ran, the targeting parameters used and how many people it reached.

The buying is already specific enough to make that interesting. Cost per click and outcome-optimised bidding now account for most campaigns, after TNW covered the move to CPC.

The stricter advertising rule may not reach it. The ban on ads profiled using sensitive data is written for providers of online platforms, and ChatGPT has been designated a search engine.

Personalisation is where the announcement hedges. OpenAI says the system may draw on a user’s broader ChatGPT experience depending on the country and their settings, in a product it is building towards conversational ads.

Nobody has resolved the scope question publicly. Ireland’s digital services coordinator supervises ChatGPT, and OpenAI has four months to comply with what the designation does bring.

Which is what makes the timing worth noting. People tell a chatbot things they would never type into a search box, and the rule written for that data is pointed at a category ChatGPT was not put in.