OpenAI is making its ChatGPT Go plan available free for one year for any Indian user signing up starting November 4. The announcement is expected to deepen the company’s growing presence in India. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year that India is its second-largest market after the US.

The free plan will be available for a limited time and it coincides with the company’s DevDay Exchange event in Bengaluru. “Ahead of our first DevDay Exchange event in India, we’re making ChatGPT Go freely available for a year to help more people across India easily access and benefit from advanced AI,” Nick Turley, vice-president and head of ChatGPT, OpenAI, said in a statement.

The ChatGPT Go plan launched earlier this year as an affordable tier, allowing more access to OpenAI’s advanced tools.

India is home to 954.4 million Internet users (till March 2024) and 95.15 per cent of villages have access to the Internet with 3G/4G mobile connectivity. Free access to the budget ChatGPT plan is expected to bring in new users who are willing to at least experience the chatbot. Since the launch of ChatGPT Go in August, the number of paid ChatGPT subscribers in India has more than doubled.

OpenAI opened its New Delhi office in August and is presently giving shape to a local team to expand its presence.

ChatGPT Go doesn’t offer the full feature set that comes with Plus and Pro plans, which are priced at ₹1,999 and ₹19,990 per month, respectively, but the budget plan allows higher messaging limits and “expanded access” to the firm’s latest model, GPT-5.

Existing ChatGPT Go subscribers in India will also be eligible for the 12-month free period; additional details are expected soon.
Recently, Perplexity, another AI company, partnered with Airtel to offer free Perplexity Pro subscriptions to the telecom operator’s 360 million subscribers. Google has also introduced a free one-year AI Pro plan for students in India.