The latest

OpenAI has opened its self-service ChatGPT Ads Manager to businesses in Israel, extending an advertising push that already covers the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait. The company began contacting regional advertisers this week and added Israel to the markets listed for self-service tools. The change lets companies run campaigns, but does not immediately introduce advertisements for Israeli ChatGPT users because advertiser access and consumer availability are being rolled out separately.

Details

• Campaign tools: Ads Manager enables advertisers to build campaigns, set budgets and track performance. It began in beta as OpenAI moved beyond its initial advertising partners and widened self-service access across India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
• Revenue strategy: Advertising adds another income stream alongside consumer subscriptions, enterprise products and API usage. OpenAI said the business reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in under 200 days, with tens of thousands of advertisers using the platform.
• Testing path: ChatGPT advertising testing began in the United States on February 9, covering adult users on Free and Go plans. OpenAI later announced availability across 31 European countries in August, followed by self-service access later that month.
• Ad format: Advertisements are designed to appear in a separate box beneath generated answers, with sponsored labeling and without influencing ChatGPT’s response. Selection can reflect conversation context, user history and advertiser budgets, shifting campaign logic beyond conventional keyword bidding toward intent expressed in dialogue.
• Privacy controls: OpenAI says advertisers will receive performance metrics but not users’ conversations or personally identifiable information. Users can disable ad personalization and ask why a specific advertisement appeared, while ads will be withheld from minors and sensitive conversations.
• Israel’s appeal: The market combines a developed technology sector, large startup ecosystem and companies spanning finance, insurance, e-commerce, cybersecurity and software. Natural Intelligence, an Israeli early beta participant, expects the local rollout to follow the US model.
• Regional contest: Google and Meta have traditionally controlled digital advertising through scale, behavioral data, search activity and advanced targeting. ChatGPT offers a distinct channel in which conversational context can connect businesses with consumers before a specific product search, as OpenAI seeks a larger share of regional advertising budgets.

Between the lines

Unlike search ads triggered mainly by predefined terms, ChatGPT campaigns can align with needs that emerge during an exchange. The model may be especially relevant to research-heavy decisions in insurance, financial services, travel, education, healthcare, telecommunications and consumer technology, where users compare options before buying. That creates a potential bridge between search advertising and personalized recommendations.

What’s next

The next concrete indicator is OpenAI’s announcement of when advertisements will begin appearing to ChatGPT users in Israel, followed by adoption levels among local advertisers using the self-service system.