On 31 August 2026 OpenAI opened beta self serve access to ChatGPT Ads Manager across its 31 European markets, the Netherlands among them. Earlier in August the same markets had gone live with one entry route only: OpenAI’s own Ads Solutions team, a selected agency, or a technology partner. From now on an eligible advertiser can build and run a campaign without anyone in between.
The announcement came with a revenue figure. According to MediaPost, OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days after launch, and that the platform is now used by tens of thousands of advertisers. Self serve buying opened on the same day across India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
What self serve means in practice
Digiday describes the rules of entry. Self serve is open to advertisers in approved categories whose ads clear OpenAI’s policy checks. Agency and technology partners remain available for marketers who prefer to buy that way. No minimum spend was mentioned for Europe, in line with the Ads Manager that opened in the United States in May.
For a Dutch or German brand this removes the main practical barrier of the past weeks. A small test budget no longer needs a partner who was admitted to the early programme, and the learning curve can start in house.
A billion dollars, read carefully
A run rate is a monthly figure multiplied by twelve. Digiday puts the implied monthly revenue at roughly $83 million and estimates actual revenue booked through August at around $330 million. Reaching the $2.5 billion target for 2026 that has been reported would require more than $541 million a month in the fourth quarter. The growth is real, and it also leaves the channel far from the scale of search.
Early performance reports point in different directions. MediaPost quotes Peter Jaffray of Choice OMG, who saw many more impressions than expected with a clickthrough rate of about 0.6 percent. Evan Engler of Common Thread Collective reported a client that saw more than 50 percent more clicks on its first day, a 108 percent higher clickthrough rate and a cost per click 19 percent below normal. One ecommerce advertiser was cited with a 3x return on ad spend over 28 days.
Those numbers do not contradict each other. They describe a channel where results depend heavily on category, creative and the questions an ad is matched to, and where nobody yet has enough history to call a benchmark.
What this means for GEA
For European advertisers the question has shifted from whether they can buy ChatGPT placement to how they should test it. Self serve makes a structured test cheap: a limited budget, one product line, a clear conversion event and a fixed evaluation window. What it does not provide is context. The platform still shows no competitor ads and no public ad library, so the brand that runs a disciplined test now will have its own benchmark when the rest of its market arrives.
Sources: MediaPost, ChatGPT Ads reaches $1B annualized · Digiday, OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads business hits $1 billion run rate as Europe gets self serve access