Key Highlights

  • ChatGPT advertising expands to 26 more countries, taking the total to 89 markets, with more than 100,000 advertisers so far.
  • OpenAI's ads business reached an annualized revenue run rate of USD 1 billion, the company said in August.
  • OpenAI's frontier models and Codex coding agent arrive on Google Cloud in the coming weeks, the companies said.
  • OpenAI's exclusive distribution arrangement with Microsoft expired in April, and Amazon Web Services already offers its models.

OpenAI used a single Wednesday to push on both ends of its business. The company said it is expanding advertising on ChatGPT to 26 more countries, and it announced with Google that its frontier models and Codex coding agent become available through Google Cloud in the coming weeks. One move targets everyday users and the brands that want to reach them. The other targets large companies that buy AI through the cloud providers they already use.

Together they show how OpenAI is widening its revenue sources as it moves toward a possible initial public offering.

On the Consumer Side, Ads Reach 89 Countries

The ads expansion lifts ChatGPT's advertising footprint to 89 countries. Fourteen of the new markets are in Latin America, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, following earlier launches in Mexico and Brazil. The other 12, a number computed from the totals, span Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, among them Nigeria, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Ads were first tested in the United States earlier this year, and more than 100,000 advertisers have since run campaigns, the company said. In August it said the business had reached an annualized revenue run rate of USD 1 billion. Advertisers in the new markets can buy through technology partners or use self-service access through Ads Manager. Last month OpenAI introduced AI-powered tools for advertisers and began testing business-sponsored agents with select US advertisers.

Ads appear only on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and Enterprise subscriptions stay ad-free.

On the Enterprise Side, a Rival's Cloud Becomes a Sales Channel

On the business side, the Google Cloud partnership brings OpenAI's latest models, such as GPT-6 Astra, into Google's Model Garden. Customers can buy them through Google Cloud Marketplace and use their existing cloud spending commitments, according to a company blog post. Companies in regulated industries can reach the models through Google Cloud's access controls, data governance tools and infrastructure, aimed at building so-called agentic AI workflows.

Google is the latest major hyperscaler to offer OpenAI models. OpenAI's exclusive distribution arrangement with Microsoft expired in April, and OpenAI has since widened distribution to Amazon Web Services and now Google Cloud. Each is competing for AI market share.

A Rivalry That Keeps Turning Into Partnership

The relationship between OpenAI and Google is layered. The two compete in core AI products and in search, yet the economics of building and running large models push them toward cooperation. Google struck a cloud deal with OpenAI last year to supply more computing capacity.

Google has been presenting its cloud unit as a neutral platform with a wide choice of models. Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, has said in an earlier interview that the platform is open and welcomes any model popular with developers. Adding OpenAI supports a strategy of offering third-party models alongside Google's own.

What the Two Moves Have in Common

Both announcements are about reach. Ads put OpenAI's free and low-cost tiers to work as a revenue source, while the cloud deals place its models where large customers already spend. Hyperscalers are becoming the main commercial channels for frontier AI labs, and cloud providers usually take a cut of sales through their platforms.

The dependence is clear in rival Anthropic's numbers: 47% of its 2025 revenue came from the cloud platforms of Amazon and Google, according to its IPO filing. Anthropic plans to list in November, and OpenAI's possible listing is seen as coming next year, according to earlier reports.