From Monday 24 August, users of the free version of ChatGPT will see a paid advertisement below the answers. OpenAI is thus bringing ads to the market it had postponed the longest. Six months after the US launch they are heading to 31 European countries, that is, the whole European Economic Area and Switzerland. The Czech Republic is among them.

Ads will be seen only by people on the free version and on the cheaper ChatGPT Go plan, which costs €7.99 a month in Europe. The Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business and Education subscriptions remain ad-free.

Where the ads run and what they look like

OpenAI switched on ads in ChatGPT as a US pilot in February 2026 and gradually extended them to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico. The first European market was Britain, in June 2026. The European launch is overseen by Emmanuel Marill, OpenAI’s director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Ads appear below an answer, are labelled “Sponsored” and are visually separated from the text the model generates. Advertisers do not get access to conversation histories, and chat content is not shared with them.

The reason OpenAI is introducing ads is to monetise the free version. According to the company, roughly 20% of queries in ChatGPT carry a direct commercial intent, when the user is dealing with a purchase, comparing products or looking for a service.

Starting in Europe without personalisation

Unlike in the US, ads in Europe are not selected on the basis of personal data at the start. OpenAI chooses them from contextual signals, such as the topic of the ongoing conversation, approximate location, device type, time of day and language. Personalisation based on personal data will come later, and only for users who give active consent in the settings under the Ad controls item.

The distinction between contextual and personalised advertising rests on the GDPR. At launch OpenAI bases contextual ads on the legitimate interest legal basis, while personalisation, which works with personal data, requires consent. The lead supervisory authority for OpenAI in Europe is the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Google adds ads, Perplexity removes them

ChatGPT’s European entry lands in a market where its two main rivals in AI search have chosen opposite directions. At Google Marketing Live in May 2026, Google presented ad formats directly in AI Mode, its conversational search, again labelled “Sponsored”. Perplexity, by contrast, scaled back ads during 2025 and expects that a paid, ad-free model will earn users’ trust in its answers.

Advertising is thus moving from search engines and social networks into generative assistants as well.

By Tereza Tiller