OpenAI plans to open its first office in India in the country's capital New Delhi in the coming months, as the ChatGPT maker looks to tap into its second-largest market globally after the US.

 

OpenAI has established a legal entity in India and has started hiring a local team, the Reuters reported citing the company's statement.

"Opening our first office and building a local team is an important first step in our commitment to make advanced AI more accessible across the country and to build AI for India, and with India," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in the statement.

The move comes just days after the AI startup launched a new subscription plan in India called ChatGPT GO at Rs 399 per month, which is much lower than the Rs 1,999 per month Plus Plan. The tailor-made subscription plan for India, however, hit a bump on the launch day as Stripe's UPI integration went down, as first reported by The Head and Tale. The issue wasn't with the AI itself but with payments.

OpenAI has been hiring in India for key positions in the past years. In April last year, it appointed former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Mishra as its public policy and partnerships lead in India. It had also roped in former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior advisor to facilitate talks with the government about AI policy, the TechCrunch had reported in 2023.

OpenAI's India push comes at a time when AI adoption in increasing at a fast clip.

According to a Sensor Tower report recently, Asia emerged as the top market for Generative AI downloads like ChatGPT driven by the rapid adoption in regions like India and China Mainland.

Generative AI apps downloads in Asia in January-June this year grew over 175% to 684 million as compared to 247 million in the same period last year. 

AI startups in general are looking to tap into India's massive population and high internet users to expand the usage of their apps.

Last month, Perplexity formed a partner with India's major telecom company Bharti Airtel to provide a 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription free of cost to all its 360 million customers.