ChatGPT Ads in the Middle East: Is Saudi Arabia on the List?

Not yet. On 31 August 2026 OpenAI expanded ChatGPT Ads to the Middle East and North Africa through its self-service Ads Manager, and the official country list in OpenAI's help centre includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not listed, as of this article's update. OpenAI states explicitly that the legal entity advertising and being billed must be based in a listed country. At the same time, the company announced its advertising business had reached a $1bn annualised revenue run rate in under two hundred days, so the channel is serious and worth preparing for now.

Where your ad appears, and who sees it

Ads appear alongside relevant conversations, with the platform using the context of the user's current conversation to decide which ad fits. OpenAI states three things that matter to any serious advertiser:

• Ads are clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT's answers.
• Advertising does not influence the answer the user reads.
• Advertisers do not get access to users' private conversations.

And a detail many miss that defines your actual audience: ads currently show to Free and Go users only. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu users have an ad-free experience. So your reach here is the general user, not necessarily the decision-maker at a large company paying for a professional tier.

What the platform gives an advertiser

This now resembles the performance channels you already know, not a brand billboard:

• CPC and outcome-optimised bidding. OpenAI says these two now account for the majority of campaigns on the platform.
• Geographic and platform targeting.
• Custom audiences you build yourself.
• Product feeds for anyone selling products.
• Pixel and Conversions API to measure what happened after the click.

How to start, practically

• Set up measurement before the campaign, not after. Install the Pixel, connect the Conversions API, and define what counts as a conversion: a quote request, a purchase, a WhatsApp conversation. A campaign without measurement is spending without learning.
• Open an Ads Manager account and set your geographic market.
• Start with CPC on a limited test budget before moving to outcome-optimised bidding, which needs conversion data to work well.
• Write in the language of the question, not the language of advertising. This user is mid-way through serious research; a message that answers their question beats one that shouts an offer.
• Prepare the landing page. A click that lands on a generic homepage is wasted. Point each ad at a page that answers the specific question it came from.
• If you sell products, upload the product feed so your data stays current without manual edits.

How to actually apply to advertise in ChatGPT

There are three ways in, and the difference between them is your budget and your team size:

• Self-service through Ads Manager. This is the door that opened to our region on 31 August. You create an account in the ads platform, set your market, budget and targeting, and launch it yourself with no intermediary. Before you start, open the Ads Manager availability page in OpenAI's help centre — it lists self-service status country by country, which is the most accurate way to confirm your country's current status rather than relying on a news report.
• OpenAI's Ads Solutions team. The managed route, which was the only way before self-service and remains available in more than forty countries. It suits larger budgets that want direct support building the campaign.
• An agency or approved technology partner. OpenAI has expanded its network to more than fifty technology and measurement partners. This suits anyone who wants the campaign and its measurement run for them.

Before preparing anything, confirm your category is allowed: OpenAI published its advertising principles on 16 January 2026, and they include barring ads near sensitive and regulated topics such as health, mental health and politics, and excluding accounts belonging to under-18s. If your business is in healthcare, check this restriction before building a plan on it.

Realistic expectations before you spend

OpenAI published some striking examples: an ecommerce advertiser reaching 3x return on ad spend over twenty-eight days, and a technology partner finding that more than 80% of ad-driven traffic came from new customers.

We will say it plainly: these are examples published by OpenAI itself, not independent benchmarks. They are a signal that the channel works; they are not a forecast for your campaign. The number that matters is yours, after a month of correct measurement.

Why it is worth attention right now

New channels tend to be less crowded and calmer on cost before the market fills up. Our region joined days ago, which means most of your competitors have not tried it yet. That window narrows quickly, as it did in every advertising channel before this one.

That said, do not move your whole budget here. The sound rule is a small test budget, precise measurement, and a decision based on your own numbers after four weeks.

How Origami helps

The hard part of this channel is not writing the ad; it is everything underneath it: installing the Pixel and wiring the Conversions API into your system, preparing a product feed from your store, building fast landing pages that actually convert, and connecting conversions to your CRM so you know which ad produced a deal rather than a click.

We build that technical layer, and we also help you create the campaigns, write the ads, run them and measure performance. Because we are a technology company first, our advantage is joining the ad to the system: from click to landing page to order to a report that tells you your real cost per customer, not your click count.

If you are considering this channel, start with a short conversation in which we review whether your site is ready to measure anything, before you open a budget. You will find us on the contact page.

Conclusion

The channel opened to our region on 31 August, and its tools are performance tools rather than display: CPC pricing, targeting, custom audiences, and measurement through Pixel and a Conversions API. The user who sees it is mid-decision, not mid-scroll. Test it with a small budget and correct measurement, then decide with numbers.

Sources

• OpenAI help centre — the Ads Manager availability page listing self-service status country by country.
• OpenAI — the advertising principles published on 16 January 2026, including the bar on ads near sensitive topics.
• Campaign Middle East, 2 September 2026 — the expansion of ChatGPT Ads to the Middle East and North Africa from 31 August, and the platform's targeting, measurement features and user tiers.
• OpenAI — the statement that its advertising business reached a $1bn annualised revenue run rate in under two hundred days, and the global expansion of self-service buying.
• Reuters and Marketing Brew coverage, 31 August 2026 — the expansion and the redesigned campaign creation experience.