Since 31 August 2026, a company based in France can open an account on OpenAI’s Ads Manager and run ads inside ChatGPT. This piece takes stock as of 25 October 2026: who sees those ads in France, how to open an account, what the channel changes for a French advertiser, and what is still plainly immature.
What is the timeline in France?
As of 25 October 2026, ad buying has been open in Europe since late August, after three public steps.
| Date | Event | What it changes for a French advertiser |
|---|---|---|
| 9 February 2026 | Ads launch in ChatGPT in the United States | The channel exists publicly, and European advertisers wait |
| 5–6 May 2026 | Ads Manager opens in self-serve, spend minimums removed | No more global entry ticket; only the $25 per day per campaign minimum remains |
| 31 August 2026 | Ad buying opens in Europe through Ads Manager, 31 markets at once | An account can be opened from France and target France |
For Europe we use the date buying opened on the advertiser side, because that is the first day a French competitor could create an account.
Who sees the ads in France?
As of 25 October 2026, ads reach only logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans; subscribers on paid plans see none.
They appear below ChatGPT’s answer, in a unit labelled “Sponsored” that stays separate from the answer and plays no part in generating it. An ad never influences what ChatGPT writes. Selection draws on the context of the current conversation, history and past ad interactions, and the advertiser receives no personal data and no conversation. OpenAI reports roughly 1 billion weekly active users worldwide. For France, nothing.
For a B2B company, the point that matters most is one to settle before opening an account: a senior decision-maker is often on a paid plan, and so out of reach. The channel does better with a founder, an operations lead or an end user than with an executive committee.
Opening an account from France, step by step
The account is created at ads.openai.com, and OpenAI requires business verification and a payment method before anything runs.
The path runs in five steps:
- Create the advertiser account at ads.openai.com with a business email address.
- Complete business verification, which OpenAI requires before ads go live.
- Set the payment method, time zone and currency, settings you check once, at the start.
- Create a first campaign: objective (Views, Clicks or Conversions), daily budget, target countries.
- Write the ad groups with their context hints, then the ads, and submit everything for review.
Sensitive categories (health, regulated finance, legal, insurance) fall under OpenAI’s ad policies. Check eligibility before launch, not after the first ad is rejected.
A channel with no competitive history
ChatGPT Ads has a few tens of thousands of active advertisers worldwide, against several million on Google Ads.
That gap mechanically explains the costs seen at entry, CPCs of $3 to $5 and CPMs of $25 to $60. It is temporary. Each new advertiser narrows it a little, and you should think twice before building a media plan on today’s prices.
The auction is a relevance-weighted second price. An ad that fits the conversation better can win with a lower bid, which makes creative and context hints a cost lever rather than a matter of taste.
OpenAI publishes no benchmarks, by industry or by campaign type. A French advertiser launching today therefore has no external reference to judge the first month: they build one, or they borrow one.
Targeting does not run on keywords. You write context hints, natural sentences saying who is talking, in what situation, with what need, so a Google Ads account gets translated more than it gets copied. The format is covered in our article on context hints, and a generator helps you get started.
What is still immature on the channel?
Reporting and formats. Both work, and both remain limited.
The native report gives six columns per day (impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, average CPC, average CPM) and nothing on the conversations that triggered an ad, on placement or on demographics. Conversions are measured elsewhere, with the OpenAI Pixel, the Conversions API, UTMs and your CRM.
The format is single and short: a title of up to 24 characters, a body of up to 48 characters, a link with UTMs, a square image of 640 to 1200 px in PNG or JPG. No video, no carousel, no extensions. Every word counts.
To judge whether the channel suits you, three cases are enough. Yes, if you have a clear offer, one landing page per intent, tracking in place and an audience that uses ChatGPT on the Free or Go plan. Yes with reservations, if the audience is senior B2B or the category is sensitive, in which case verify first. No, if there is no tracking, no budget to sustain $25 per day per campaign for several weeks, or an offer that cannot be understood in 48 characters.
One note on scope: the OpenAI Select Partner status we hold denotes membership of a programme, not an OpenAI endorsement or exclusivity, and any account we run always belongs to the advertiser.