OpenAI has announced plans to open its first office in India. This move comes just days after the company launched a new ChatGPT plan tailored for Indian users, signaling its intent to tap into the country’s rapidly growing AI market.
The company stated it will set up a local team and open a corporate office in the capital city of New Delhi in the coming months. This builds on OpenAI’s recent hiring efforts in the region. In April 2024, the company appointed former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Mishra as its public policy and partnerships lead in India. OpenAI also brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior advisor to help facilitate discussions with the Indian government on AI policy.
India, the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone market after China, is a natural fit for OpenAI. The company is competing with tech giants like Google and Meta, as well as AI upstarts like Perplexity, all of which are looking to tap into the country’s massive user base.
OpenAI said it has started hiring a local team to focus on strengthening relationships with local partners, governments, businesses, developers, and academic institutions. It plans to gather feedback from Indian users to make its products more relevant for the local audience and even build features and tools specifically for the country.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated that opening an office and building a local team is an important first step in the company’s commitment to make advanced AI more accessible across India and to build AI for India, and with India.
OpenAI also announced it will host its first Education Summit in India this month and its first Developer Day in the country later this year.
While India is clearly an essential market for OpenAI, the company faces key challenges. These include converting free users into paying subscribers. Like other major AI players, it must navigate the monetization hurdle in a price-sensitive South Asian market.
Earlier this week, the company introduced its sub-$5 ChatGPT plan called ChatGPT Go, priced at ₹399 per month. This makes it the first ChatGPT plan in India aimed at attracting the masses. This development came just days after its rival, Perplexity, partnered with Indian telco giant Bharti Airtel to give Airtel’s more than 360 million subscribers access to Perplexity Pro for 12 months.
OpenAI also faces challenges in integrating with Indian businesses. In November, Indian news agency Asian News International sued OpenAI for allegedly using its copyrighted news content without permission. A group of Indian publishers joined that case in January.
Nonetheless, the Indian government is actively promoting AI across its departments and aims to strengthen the country’s position on the global AI map, a momentum that OpenAI hopes to leverage. Altman noted that India has all the ingredients to become a global AI leader, including amazing tech talent, a world-class developer ecosystem, and strong government support through the IndiaAI Mission.
India is not OpenAI’s first Asian office location. The company previously opened offices in markets including Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Its rival, Anthropic, considered Japan a higher-priority market than India in the continent and recently set up its office in Tokyo rather than New Delhi.
One reason these AI companies do not prioritize India as an early market is the difficulty in securing enterprise customers, according to a Silicon Valley-based investor source.
Indian IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that OpenAI’s decision to establish a presence in India reflects the country’s growing leadership in digital innovation and AI adoption. He added that as part of the IndiaAI Mission, the government is building the ecosystem for trusted and inclusive AI, and welcomes OpenAI’s partnership in advancing this vision to ensure the benefits of AI reach every citizen.