Is India becoming OpenAI’s next billion-user experiment?

Last week, OpenAI announced a full-year free subscription for Indian users starting November 4.
On top of that, they’ve rolled out a “Learning Accelerator” program offering 5 lakh ChatGPT licenses to students and educators, and begun hiring engineers in Bengaluru.

So… why the sudden focus?

Here’s my take:

• India is now OpenAI’s 2nd-largest user base, and probably the fastest-growing.

• By locking in early brand trust and language familiarity, OpenAI is essentially building a “moat” for the next billion users.

• The country has 700 million + internet users, but very low per-capita SaaS/AI spending. That’s a huge conversion opportunity.

• Local competition is heating up as Perplexity, Gemini, and even smaller Indian startups are fighting for daily-use adoption.

My open questions:

• Will this “free-for-a-year” strategy actually build paid conversions, or will it condition users to expect free AI forever?

• How will localized payment systems (like UPI) reshape global AI monetization?

• Could India become the test-bed for OpenAI’s global pricing and education programs?
  

Would love to hear what the PH community thinks about this!