Everyone tracking Google Ads watches for changes inside the platform itself. The bigger story this month happened somewhere else entirely — inside OpenAI. On August 31, 2026, ChatGPT Ads crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue less than 200 days after launch, and OpenAI marked the moment by opening self-serve advertising to a big new stretch of the world: 31 European markets, India, and a first wave of Middle East and North Africa countries. If you’re running marketing for a UAE business, there’s one detail worth knowing before you get too excited about that — and a few things worth doing regardless of when it lands here.
This draws on the same independent tracker, gadschangehistory.com, that we use to follow Google Ads changes every month — cross-checked here against OpenAI’s, Amazon’s and Google’s own announcements. If you want this month’s Google Ads-specific changes — Performance Max, Local Services Ads billing, the broad match migration — we covered those in a separate roundup. This one is about what’s moving around Google Ads, in the wider AI-advertising and AI-search landscape.
- ChatGPT Ads hit a $1B annualized revenue run rate on August 31 and opened self-serve buying in 31 European countries, India, and seven MENA markets
- Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not yet on OpenAI’s self-serve list, as of early September
- A new Ads Manager plugin lets advertisers build and edit campaigns by typing instructions into ChatGPT or Codex
- Amazon Ads began piloting a bridge that extends Amazon DSP campaigns into ChatGPT inventory — U.S. only for now
- Google Search Console’s Generative AI performance reports are now live on every website worldwide — free, and already sitting in your account if you use Search Console
What changed with ChatGPT Ads this month?
A $1 billion milestone, and a big expansion
OpenAI has been building toward this for a while. Self-serve buying opened to U.S. businesses back in May, and by late August the platform had scaled enough that OpenAI announced two things the same day: a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate reached in under 200 days, with tens of thousands of advertisers already running campaigns, and a major international expansion of self-serve access.
From August 31, eligible advertisers in 31 European markets, India, and a first group of Middle East and North Africa countries could set up a ChatGPT Ads account, upload creative, set a budget and launch a campaign without going through a managed partnership. By September 3, OpenAI’s own availability page listed 52 countries with self-serve access in total. OpenAI’s VP of Global Ad Solutions framed the expansion as putting the opportunity within reach of businesses of every size, not just the larger brands that had access during the earlier pilot phase.
Which Gulf countries are on the list — and which aren’t
Here’s the part that matters most if you’re managing UAE accounts: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not on OpenAI’s self-serve list yet. Here’s how the region split as of the August 31 expansion:
| Live for self-serve ChatGPT Ads | Not yet live |
|---|---|
| Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman | Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates |
Worth noting: the UAE already hosts one of OpenAI’s global inference regions, so there’s infrastructure in the country already. That isn’t the same as an ads rollout, and OpenAI hasn’t announced a timeline for bringing the UAE or Saudi Arabia into the self-serve programme. Google’s own Search Console AI reports (more on those below) took a similarly staged path — UK-only in June, wider regions later that month, worldwide by the end of August — so a staged rollout eventually reaching the Gulf wouldn’t be surprising. Nothing’s confirmed, though, and we’d rather say that plainly than guess at a date.
A plugin for running campaigns by typing instructions
Alongside the international expansion, OpenAI shipped an Ads Manager plugin on September 4 that lets advertisers create, edit, troubleshoot and analyze campaigns using plain-language instructions inside ChatGPT or Codex (OpenAI’s coding tool), with a preview step before anything goes live. It’s paired with upgrades to the ad platform itself: custom audiences can now be updated incrementally instead of replaced wholesale, support mixed identifier types and Google Advertising IDs, and scale up to lists of 5 million or more. The measurement pixel and Conversions API now accept hashed phone numbers, names, regions and postal codes for better match rates, and advertisers running product feeds get impression and click data down to the individual carousel card, billed separately from standard ad impressions.
This rolled out across every market where Ads Manager already operates, so it doesn’t extend access to the UAE on its own. What it does signal is a platform maturing quickly — the tooling now looks a lot closer to what advertisers expect from Google or Meta than it did even a few months ago.
Amazon just plugged into ChatGPT, too
On September 10, Amazon Ads and OpenAI launched a pilot letting a select group of U.S. advertisers extend their existing Amazon DSP campaigns directly into ChatGPT ad inventory, with Delta Vacations among the first. Amazon handles campaign setup and optimization on its end; OpenAI’s system controls delivery and placement inside ChatGPT. Inventory is available on both CPC and CPM bases, including product feed ads.
It’s a U.S.-only pilot for now, with no indication yet of when — or whether — it extends elsewhere. But it fits a pattern worth watching: major ad platforms are racing to plug into ChatGPT’s audience rather than leaving advertisers to buy direct through OpenAI alone. If that continues, UAE advertisers might eventually reach ChatGPT inventory through a familiar platform before OpenAI’s own self-serve tool arrives locally.
Google Search Console just got a lot more useful for AI visibility
The other change worth your attention this month didn’t come from an ads platform at all. On August 31, Google confirmed that Search Console’s Generative AI performance reports, plus the related Search generative AI control, are now live for every website worldwide, after a staged rollout that started in the UK back in June.
The report shows how often a site’s pages are surfacing inside AI Overviews and AI Mode responses, measured in impressions. It doesn’t include click or query data yet, and Google notes the report may simply not appear for sites that don’t get enough AI-generated impressions to report on. Still, this is a real, free measurement tool that’s already sitting inside every Search Console account, worth a look this week even before you change anything else.
If AI visibility is new territory for your team, this connects directly to the GEO and AEO work we’ve written about before — getting a UAE business cited by ChatGPT and AI Overviews and how SEO, AEO and GEO fit together in 2026. The Search Console report is the closest thing yet to a scoreboard for that work.
What this means for your marketing this quarter
If you only take three things from this:
- Check Search Console this week. The Generative AI performance report is free, already live, and needs no setup beyond having Search Console connected — most of our clients already do.
- If you sell into Europe, India, Egypt, Jordan or the Gulf states already on the list, ChatGPT Ads is now a channel you can actually test, not just read about.
- If you’re UAE-based, don’t wait on an access date that hasn’t been set. Put the energy into the AI-search fundamentals — structured, clearly-answered content — that pay off whether the next door that opens is ChatGPT Ads reaching the Gulf, wider AI Overview visibility, or something else entirely.
We track changes like these — across Google Ads, the wider AI-platform landscape, and organic AI search visibility — against live client accounts every month, through our Google Ads management and SEO work, so our travel, facility, and local-service clients aren’t stuck choosing between running a business and monitoring three platforms at once. If you’d rather have someone else watch this for you, get in touch for a free consultation.
FAQ
Can UAE businesses advertise on ChatGPT yet?
Not through self-serve, as of early September 2026. The UAE and Saudi Arabia weren’t on OpenAI’s list of self-serve countries when access expanded to Europe, India and parts of MENA on August 31. No launch date for the Gulf has been announced.
Which countries can buy ChatGPT Ads through self-serve right now?
As of the August 31 expansion: 31 European markets, India, and the MENA countries Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman — 52 countries in total as of September 3, according to OpenAI’s own availability page.
Is ChatGPT Ads the same as Google’s AI Mode ads?
No. They’re different companies and different systems. ChatGPT Ads is OpenAI’s advertising platform inside ChatGPT itself. Google’s AI Mode ads are a separate, much smaller test showing standard Search ads inside Google’s own AI-generated search results. We covered the AI Mode test in our Google Ads September roundup.
What are Google Search Console’s new Generative AI performance reports?
A report showing how often a site appears in AI-generated answers like AI Overviews and AI Mode, measured in impressions only, with no clicks or search queries yet. It rolled out to every website worldwide on August 31, 2026, and needs no setup if Search Console is already connected.
Where does this information come from?
Details and dates are drawn from gadschangehistory.com’s independent, community-maintained change log (CC BY 4.0), cross-checked against OpenAI’s and Amazon Ads’ own announcements and Google Search Central’s Search Console documentation.
Sources: Details and dates in this article are drawn from gadschangehistory.com’s independent change log (CC BY 4.0), cross-checked against OpenAI’s official announcement, Amazon Ads’ announcement, and Google Search Central’s documentation.
