OpenAI announces New Delhi Office as it expands its footprint in India
OpenAI announced its plans to open a first office in India. This comes just days after it launched a ChatGPT plan specifically for Indian users. The company is looking to tap into India’s rapidly expanding AI market.
The company announced on Friday that it would open a corporate office, New Delhi in the capital city, and a local team, in India. This move builds on OpenAI’s recent hiring efforts within the region. In April 2024 the company appointed Pragya misra, a former Truecaller Meta executive as its lead for public policy and partnerships in India. OpenAI has also hired former Twitter India head Rishi Jitly as a senior adviser to help facilitate discussions on AI policy with the Indian Government.
India, the world’s largest internet and smartphone market, is a natural fit with OpenAI. It competes with tech giants such as Google and Meta as well as AI start-ups like Perplexity who are all looking to tap the massive user base of the country.
According to the company, it has begun hiring a team in India to “focus on strengthening the relationships with local partners, government, businesses, developers, academic institutions, and other organizations.” The company plans to gather feedback from Indian users and build features and tools that are specifically tailored for the country. In a press release, Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI, said that opening the first office and assembling a local team was an important step in their commitment to making advanced AI more accessible throughout India and to build AI with India. OpenAI announced that it will host its first Education Summit and Developer Day in India later this year.
India is a crucial market for OpenAI. However, the company faces many challenges. One of them is how to convert free users to paying subscribers. It must also navigate the monetization obstacle in a price sensitive South Asian market, like other major AI players.October 27-29, 2025
Earlier this week, the company introduced its sub-$5 ChatGPT plan called ChatGPT Go, priced at Rs399 per month (approximately $4.75), making it the first ChatGPT plan in India to attract the masses. This was just a few days after Perplexity, the arch-rival, partnered with Indian telco Bharti Airtel in order to provide Perplexity Pro to Airtel’s 360 million subscribers for a period of 12 months.
OpenAI faces similar challenges when it comes to integrating with Indian companies. In November, Indian news agency Asian News International sued OpenAI over allegedly using its news content without permission. A group of Indian publishers Joined that case in January
The Indian government is actively promoting AI in all departments and wants to strengthen India’s position on a global AI map. OpenAI hopes to capitalize on this momentum. Altman said that India has the right ingredients to become the global leader in AI. It has a strong developer ecosystem, amazing tech talent and government support through its IndiaAI Mission.
India’s not OpenAI’s first Asian office. The company has previously opened offices in markets such as Japanis located in Singapore South KoreaOpenAI rival Anthropic considered Japan to be a more important market in the continent than India and recently Set up its office in Tokyo instead of New Delhi .
According to a Silicon Valley investor source, one of the reasons AI companies don’t prioritize India as a first market is the difficulty in securing enterprises customers. In a prepared statement, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that OpenAI’s decision reflects India’s growing leadership in AI adoption and digital innovation. As part of the IndiaAI Mission we are building an ecosystem for trusted and inclusiv AI and we welcome OpenAI’s partnership in advancing the vision to ensure that the benefits of AI can reach every citizen. Fill out This surveywill let us know what we’re doing, and you can win a prize!
Jagmeet is responsible for covering all major tech-centric news from India, including updates on tech policy and startups. He was a principal reporter at NDTV.
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