OpenAI is bringing ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets. We've tracked this channel through two prior launches, so here's what the data says comes next.
ChatGPT Ads is expanding to 31 European markets, six months after the US pilot began and roughly two months after the UK became the first European country to switch it on. Europe is not a blank page. Across nearly 850,000 AI search queries we watched the same launch pattern run twice: aggregators and broad-intent retail move first, ad frequency starts low with softer CPCs, and regulated sectors stay dark. The window to build an early position is open again, one market at a time.
ChatGPT Ads is arriving in Europe next week, and if that sounds like a brand new frontier, it isn’t. We’ve measured this exact rollout twice, in the US in February and the UK in June. The format barely changes market to market. What changes is who moves first.
So treat Europe as a rerun with new contestants. Here’s what the data says to expect.
On August 18, OpenAI confirmed ChatGPT Ads is coming to 31 European markets, calling it its largest expansion to date.
A few details matter for how the launch will behave:
The controls are maturing fast, too. This week we spotted a negative phrases field appear inside ChatGPT Ads Manager, a search-style exclusion control, before any public notice.
When a market opens with a thin advertiser field, the brands that fill the space first are the ones with broad commercial intent across many queries: retail, travel and comparison players. We saw it clearly in the US, where Retail & Fashion became the commercial centre of gravity, accounting for 24% of query volume but a striking 39% of all ad items, at an ad frequency of 6.55% against a US average near 4.5%.
Early US movers were exactly the names you’d expect to cast a wide net. The first live ChatGPT ad we confirmed was Expedia, triggered on a single travel-planning prompt, with Best Buy close behind and landing two placements in one response. Broad-catalogue and comparison-style advertisers get in early because they can match a huge range of conversational prompts.
For European brands the read is simple. If you sell in retail, travel or any comparison-heavy category, assume the aggregators are registering interest now. The uncontested position you could hold cheaply this month gets more expensive the moment they’re approved.
New markets start quiet. In our March-to-May window ChatGPT served ads on 4.47% of US queries, and when it did show an ad it almost always showed exactly one: the average ad-bearing answer carried just 1.06 ad items. There’s no row of three and no shopping carousel, just a single sponsored slot. Google’s AI, by contrast, averages 3.53 items per ad-bearing answer, behaving much more like a carousel.
These are US figures from our analysis of nearly 850,000 AI search queries, captured before the European launch. We’re using them to predict how Europe behaves, not reporting live European numbers.
A single slot and a shallow advertiser pool means less competition for that slot, which keeps costs down at the start. That’s the opportunity. As more advertisers join each market, more bidders chase the same single placement, and auction prices climb. The economics reward whoever establishes position while the field is thin, then defends it as costs rise.
The UK went live on June 6, the first European market to get ChatGPT Ads, and its launch is the template these 31 markets are following: gated, registration-only, ads showing to Free and Go users, no open self-serve at the start. If you want to know how your market’s first weeks will feel, the UK is the closest read you have.
There’s a competitive wrinkle worth naming. US advertisers have had since February to learn which prompts convert and which creative works. When European buying opens properly, they won’t be starting from scratch even if you are. The gap between an advertiser on their third month of learnings and one on their first is real, and it compounds.
We’ve now tracked this channel through two launches. The pattern barely changes: the brands that establish position while a market is young are the hardest to dislodge once it matures. Europe’s 31 markets are the biggest early-mover opportunity we’ve seen in this channel yet.
Ashley Fletcher
Adthena
CMO
We’ve seen this before with Google Ads, where the early practitioners who understood the platform first built leads that took competitors years to close. ChatGPT Ads is opening that same window across 31 European markets at once, and it won’t stay open forever. The brands paying attention while these channels are young will be the hardest to shift once they mature.
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