The United Arab Emirates has emerged as one of the markets gaining access to advertising inside artificial intelligence (AI) assistants, with OpenAI opening its ChatGPT Ads Manager to UAE businesses as conversational AI increasingly becomes part of the global advertising landscape.
According to the ONS Digital Marketing report, “UAE availability, audience and customer planning, the UAE is among 89 countries where advertisers can access the platform through self-service. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are also listed as available markets.
The development gives regional advertisers an opportunity to place sponsored content within ChatGPT conversations, although access remains subject to business registration, advertising category eligibility and campaign approval.
ChatGPT opens regional access
OpenAI announced its advertising initiative on January 16, 2026, initially testing the format in the United States from February 9. The platform subsequently expanded into additional markets, opening self-service access across the Middle East and North Africa on August 31.
The company reported on October 21 that more than 100,000 advertisers had run campaigns on ChatGPT in just over eight months. It also said the chatbot had crossed 1.2 billion weekly users globally.
OpenAI had earlier disclosed an annualised advertising revenue run rate of $1 billion on August 31, achieved in fewer than 200 days. The figure highlights the speed at which advertising is developing as a commercial component of generative AI platforms.
However, the global user figures should not be interpreted as the potential advertising audience in the UAE, as OpenAI has not published country-level user numbers or regional advertising expenditure.
UAE’s AI audience grows
The UAE already has a substantial AI user base. Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Report, published in September 2026, estimated that 73.3% of people aged 15 to 64 in the country used generative AI products in the second quarter, the highest proportion among the markets surveyed.
StatCounter data for September placed ChatGPT’s share of UAE AI chatbot traffic at 80.99%. Google, however, continued to dominate conventional search, accounting for 93.47% of the country’s search engine share.
Google’s advertising position in AI-generated results remains different from OpenAI’s. Although AI Overviews are available in the UAE and support Arabic, advertisements placed directly inside these summaries are currently restricted to 12 countries, none of which is in the Middle East.
Advertisers in the UAE can still reach users through conventional Google Search campaigns, with eligible advertisements appearing above or below AI Overviews. Google’s advertising formats inside AI Mode, meanwhile, have not been confirmed for the UAE.
Competition takes shape
Other technology companies are also exploring commercial opportunities in conversational AI, but their regional availability remains uncertain.
Microsoft has expanded advertising within Copilot across selected language markets, although UAE-specific availability has not been established. Amazon’s sponsored prompts within its Rufus shopping assistant have been described as available in the United States, while Meta is using interactions with its AI assistant to inform advertising recommendations across its wider platforms rather than introducing a separate advertising placement inside AI conversations.
Perplexity, which began experimenting with sponsored advertising in November 2024, has stopped accepting new advertisers. Reports in February 2026 indicated that the company planned to wind down its advertising programme by the end of the year.
For UAE marketers, ChatGPT currently represents the clearest opportunity to experiment with advertising directly inside an AI assistant. However, OpenAI’s availability listing does not guarantee approval for every business category. Restrictions apply to areas including alcohol, tobacco, gambling and several financial and healthcare services.
The expansion also comes without reliable benchmarks for UAE advertising costs, campaign performance or market size. Advertisers will therefore need to evaluate the channel against measurable outcomes such as qualified enquiries, customer acquisition costs and conversions rather than relying on global audience figures.
With Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon continuing to develop their AI advertising offerings, the emerging market is likely to create additional opportunities for regional businesses, although the pace of adoption will depend on local availability, regulatory requirements and the ability to demonstrate commercial returns.
