- OpenAI is bringing ads to its ChatGPT Free and Go plans in South Africa, and says the ads will be clearly marked and will not change the answers.
- ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business and Education plans stay ad free, and users can manage ad settings.
ChatGPT users in South Africa may soon start seeing ads.
OpenAI is bringing ads to its free plan and its cheapest paid plan, called Go, in 26 more countries, including South Africa.
The company emailed South African users about a change to its privacy policy, which explains how the ads work and how people can control them.
The Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business and Education plans will stay ad free.
OpenAI said ads will be clearly marked as sponsored and kept apart from ChatGPT’s answers. It said the ads will not change what the chatbot tells you.
Ads can be tailored to you using information that stays inside ChatGPT, such as ads you have interacted with or what you talk about in your chats. You can manage this in your settings.
OpenAI said advertisers cannot see your chats, chat history, memories or personal details. They only get overall numbers, such as how many people saw or clicked on an ad.
It also said it does not show ads to accounts it identifies as belonging to people under 18.
OpenAI began testing ads in the United States in February 2026. In April, it launched a tool called Ads Manager that lets businesses buy ads themselves with no minimum spend.
MyBroadband reported that the tool was not yet open to South African businesses. That means any ads South Africans see for now will not come from local companies.
OpenAI said that when it widened ads to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa on 31 August, they were making money at a rate of US$1-billion a year. It said tens of thousands of advertisers now use the platform.
The company said ads are one of several ways it makes money, alongside subscriptions, business products and paid access for developers. It said ads help keep the free plan available to more than one billion people every week.
