ChatGPT Ads expands custom-audience management

What changed

OpenAI's custom-audience instructions confirm that advertisers can maintain an existing audience by adding, removing or replacing members. The update reported by Barry Schwartz also includes mixed supported identifiers, audiences larger than five million members and support for Google Advertising IDs. Maintaining the same audience object can reduce the administrative work involved in refreshing a list already used by campaigns.

The distinction between uploaded records and matched people remains central. OpenAI's instructions require at least 25,000 matched users for inclusion targeting or audience bid adjustments, while smaller audiences can be used for exclusions. A file containing 25,000 rows therefore does not establish that it qualifies for inclusion. Invalid, duplicate or unmatched identifiers can reduce the usable audience, and processing must finish before the resulting list is ready.

An acquisition team could use the maintenance workflow to keep a recent-customer exclusion aligned with its customer database. A separate prospect list might have an entirely different purpose and activation threshold. These are illustrative uses: the update does not demonstrate an improvement in match rate, lower acquisition costs or permission to upload every identifier a business possesses. List purpose, data quality and the applicable data-use requirements remain separate decisions from whether the interface accepts a file.

Why it matters for advertisers

The most useful operational improvement is continuity. A named, maintained audience can stay attached to the campaigns that need it while its membership changes. That also makes a mistaken replacement more consequential, so audience names and update procedures should describe the business rule clearly. Treat a successful upload as one check in the workflow, then verify the intended audience status and campaign use.