OpenAI deepens India footprint with new usage data and partnerships

On Friday, OpenAI released usage data showing that young users dominate its platform in India. According to the company, users between 18 and 24 years of age account for nearly 50% of ChatGPT usage in India, while users under 30 account for 80% of usage. OpenAI noted that Indians use ChatGPT mostly for work, with 35% of messages relating to professional tasks, compared to 30% globally. Outside of work tasks, 35% of messages to ChatGPT from Indians requested guidance, 20% concerned questions about general information, and 20% were requests for writing assistance.

The company’s coding assistant, Codex, is seeing strong traction in India. OpenAI asserted that Codex usage in India is three times the global median, and weekly Codex usage has increased four times since the Mac app launch two weeks ago. Users in India are also asking three times as many coding-related questions as the median. This aligns with findings released earlier this week by competitor Anthropic, which stated that 45.2% of tasks on its Claude model in India map to software-related use cases.

India is now OpenAI’s second-largest market with more than 100 million weekly users. To support this growth, the company is opening new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru this year. It has also secured a partnership with conglomerate Tata Group to secure 100 megawatts of AI compute capacity and distribute ChatGPT Enterprise through its IT services subsidiary, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). To spur adoption, OpenAI offers a sub-$5 subscription tier in the country and ran promotional campaigns last year.

Additionally, the company has signed agreements with several partners:

• Pine Labs
• Ixigo
• MakeMyTrip
• Eternal

Separately, OpenAI has partnered with educational institutes to distribute its tools to more than 100,000 students over the next six years.

The data release is part of OpenAI’s new data initiative, Signals, which was highlighted during the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi this week. Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist, stated: “AI adoption is moving faster than our ability to measure it – and that’s a challenge for anyone trying to make smart decisions. Signals is our way of putting real-world evidence on the table, so India’s AI debate can be grounded in facts, not hype”.

Why it matters

OpenAI is using granular usage data to justify its expansion in India, its second-largest market, by aligning its product strategy with the country’s demand for professional and coding tools.