OpenAI said it will expand its ChatGPT advertising pilot to South Korea from June 19.

The advertising pilot was previously introduced in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. OpenAI explained that it confirmed interest from companies seeking to reach customers in an intent-based conversational environment in the initial pilot markets.

Ads will be shown only to adult users on ChatGPT’s free and Go plans. They will not be displayed to users on the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans.

OpenAI said it applies key principles including guaranteeing independence of answers, not sharing users’ conversation content and personal information, and ensuring users’ right to choose and control ads. Ads will be clearly separated from ChatGPT answers and labelled as "sponsored content". Advertisers cannot influence the content of answers.

Users’ conversation content and personal information will not be provided to advertisers. Advertisers can check only aggregated performance information such as views and clicks.

Users can hide ads or provide feedback. They can also manage whether ads are personalised in settings.

Ads will not be displayed to accounts confirmed or presumed to be minors. It was designed to avoid showing ads in conversations on sensitive topics such as mental health and politics.

OpenAI is providing related guidance within ChatGPT to users covered by the pilot. It plans to review user feedback during operations to improve the advertising experience.

OpenAI Korea country lead Kyunghoon Kim (김경훈) said, "OpenAI's mission is to ensure AI benefits all of humanity." He said, "Ads can help expand access so more people can use ChatGPT without the burden of cost."