ChatGPT India users now form the chatbot’s largest market by weekly active users, according to OpenAI India managing director Prabhjeet Singh. The announcement, reported on 3 November 2026, marks a change from 15 February, when OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman put India’s weekly audience at 100 million and ranked it second behind the United States. Singh said the Indian audience has doubled since January 2026, though his latest statement did not include an updated user count.
A weekly active user is someone who uses the service during a particular week. The doubling comparison starts in January, while the 100 million figure comes from February, so a current total cannot be calculated from those two disclosures.
OpenAI’s expansion in India has combined rising consumer use with a larger local business presence. Altman described India during a visit in 2025 as the company’s fastest growing market and its second largest by users. OpenAI opened its first India office in Delhi NCR in August 2025, then announced Mumbai and Bengaluru offices and OpenAI for India at the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026.
How ChatGPT India users shaped the language push
Voice, Hindi and other Indian languages sit at the centre of OpenAI’s effort to reach people beyond major cities. Singh described ChatGPT India users going directly to ChatGPT’s dictation button, choosing to speak rather than type. He said most of India does not use English as a primary language, so work on Hindi and vernacular capability during the year was beginning to show results.
For ChatGPT India users more comfortable speaking Hindi or another Indian language, the practical issue is whether they can describe a task naturally and understand the answer without translating it themselves. ChatGPT India users also include large numbers of students: Altman said in February that India had the largest number of student ChatGPT users globally. Google vice president and general manager for education Chris Phillips has said India accounted for the highest global usage of Gemini for learning.
OpenAI is also prioritising Android phones for ChatGPT India users and working to deliver the full model experience on devices with limited memory.
Affordability and payments for ChatGPT India users
ChatGPT Go is another part of OpenAI’s approach to access. The subscription tier was introduced at a price below 5 dollars and was later made free for a year for Indian users. Singh cited it as a measure designed with affordability in mind. Google offered Indian students a free subscription to its AI Pro plan for a year in September 2025, so both companies have used temporary free access to bring more people into services that also have paid tiers.
OpenAI is expected to announce developments involving UPI and payments in the coming weeks. UPI, or Unified Payments Interface, is India’s system for transferring money between bank accounts through participating applications. Details of the planned announcements have not been disclosed. Serving that audience while building income from subscriptions, businesses and advertising is now OpenAI’s commercial task, and ChatGPT India users sit at the centre of it.
Small shops and developers form part of that audience. Singh said ChatGPT India users include traders creating customised festive messages for customers and shops run by one person exploring marketing and inventory management. He said India was among the largest and fastest growing markets for Codex, OpenAI’s coding tool, with substantial use emerging from smaller cities commonly described as tier II cities. Singh gave no figures for how many small businesses use these tools or the savings they have achieved.
ChatGPT India users and the business expansion
Indian enterprises, startups and global capability centres are moving beyond pilots into production deployments, Singh said, citing JioHotstar and Cars24. Singh said ChatGPT India users in business need to know how their information is handled and whether the value of a tool justifies its cost.
Computing capacity brings data processing closer to those business customers. OpenAI’s partnership with TCS’ HyperVault data centre business starts with 100 megawatts of capacity and could scale to 1 gigawatt. The capacity addresses enterprise data residency and security needs, and OpenAI models are also available through Amazon Web Services’ Amazon Bedrock for local inference in India.
Advertising adds a second route to affordable access. OpenAI is expanding advertising on ChatGPT in India, with Singh saying ads can help support free access and subscriptions at lower prices. He said advertisers would not receive users’ personal information and advertisements would not influence ChatGPT’s responses. The company has partnered with Razorpay to help Indian brands advertise through the service, and early participating brands include Tanishq, Fastrack, Traya, Tata Neu and Shaadi.com. OpenAI is also engaging with Indian government agencies, banks and financial institutions on cybersecurity and the protection of critical infrastructure against misuse involving AI agents.