[UPDATE] ChatGPT ads expand to six Southeast Asian markets and Taiwan, 25 days after India; platform past 60 countries on a $1B run rate
OpenAI opened ChatGPT ads (Free and Go tiers only) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan on Sep 23, with self-service buying from Sep 24, taking the platform past 60 countries; the $1B annualized run rate was announced at end-August, under 200 days from launch. Agency partners include dentsu, Havas, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP, with Shopee as a launch advertiser. Google has run ads in AI Overviews in four of these markets for ~9 months. Read-through for the answer-engine beat: ad inventory in AI answers is now a two-player market in Asia, and the monetization race is a direct competitor to Google's search ad base. Watch: any CPM or advertiser-count disclosure from OpenAI's first Asia quarter.