India is fast becoming a global AI leader, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicting it could soon surpass the U.S. as the company’s largest market. With 96% of Indian professionals already using AI tools at work and 94% believing AI skills are essential for career growth, the country is witnessing widespread adoption. OpenAI’s launch of GPT-5, which now supports 12+ Indian languages, reflects this strategic focus on India’s fast-growing, AI-savvy user base.
Image Source: Freepik
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has expressed confidence that India could emerge as the company’s largest market globally. His remarks coincided with the launch of OpenAI’s most advanced model yet—ChatGPT-5. Currently, India ranks as OpenAI’s second-largest market after the United States, but Altman emphasized the country’s potential to take the top spot, applauding the ingenuity and scale with which Indians are embracing artificial intelligence.
“India is our second-largest market in the world after the US, and it may well become our largest market. It’s incredibly fast-growing, but what users are doing with AI, what citizens of India are doing with AI, is really quite remarkable,” Altman said during a media briefing.
Reiterating OpenAI’s growing commitment to the Indian market, Altman shared that the company is placing significant emphasis on adapting its offerings to meet local needs. He highlighted ongoing collaborations with domestic partners aimed at ensuring that AI tools are not only effective but also widely accessible.
“We’re especially focused on bringing products to India, working with local partners to make AI work great for India and make it more affordable for people across the country. We’ve been paying a lot of attention here given the rate of growth, and I am excited to come for a visit in September,” he said.
The remarks come at a time when India’s professional workforce is demonstrating rapid and widespread adoption of AI technologies. According to the 2025 Global Workplace Skills study conducted by Emeritus, Indian professionals are leading the global AI adoption curve, with 96% of them already using AI and generative AI tools at work. This figure is significantly higher than the 81% in the United States and 84% in the United Kingdom. Of the Indian professionals using these tools, 95% have reported productivity improvements.
The study also found that nearly 94% of the Indian workforce believes that mastering AI skills will accelerate their career growth. This strong belief in AI’s career-transforming potential is driving not only adoption but also a shift in learning and professional development priorities.
“The workforce needs to keep up with the time and evolve their approach to work with new skills, mindsets and competencies. India’s workforce is not only adapting to AI but actively harnessing it to shape the future of work,” said Ashwin Damera, CEO and cofounder of Emeritus.
The survey, which captured responses from 6,000 professionals, also revealed that 90% of them view AI and generative AI as crucial for future career success. In addition, 94% consider AI expertise to be essential not just for professional growth but also for enabling transitions across industries.
It highlighted four major trends in how Indian learners perceive and use AI—namely, higher AI adoption in India compared to global peers, prioritization of AI and GenAI skills, recognition of AI’s transformative impact on the workplace, and emerging concerns about AI-driven job displacement. Reflecting this sentiment, 73% of employers in India have increased their investments in employee training over the past year to keep up with the changing demands.
OpenAI’s GPT-5 tailored for India’s growing needs
As part of its push to serve India’s rapidly expanding AI ecosystem, OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT-5, which the company describes as its “best model yet for coding and agentic tasks.” The new model offers developers a variety of options through three different sizes—gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, and gpt-5-nano—enabling them to balance performance, cost, and response speed.
“We’re releasing GPT-5 in three sizes in the API — gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, and gpt-5-nano — to give developers more flexibility to trade off performance, cost, and latency. While GPT-5 in ChatGPT is a system of reasoning, non-reasoning, and router models, GPT-5 in the API platform is the reasoning model that powers maximum performance in ChatGPT. Notably, GPT-5 with minimal reasoning is a different model from the non-reasoning model in ChatGPT, and is better tuned for developers. The non-reasoning model used in ChatGPT is available as gpt-5-chat-latest,” OpenAI explained in a detailed blog post.
Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, highlighted that the new model offers significant enhancements in multilingual understanding, particularly in Indian languages.
“GPT-5 significantly improves multilingual understanding across over 12 Indian languages, including regional languages. So that’s really exciting because as Sam mentioned, India is a priority market for us,” Turley said.
The rollout of GPT-5 began on August 7 for free-tier, Plus, and Pro users. Enterprise and Education users are scheduled to receive access a week later, broadening the reach of advanced AI capabilities across various user groups.
Altman’s remarks and OpenAI’s actions align with broader trends that suggest India is rapidly emerging as a central hub for AI growth—driven by tech-savvy professionals, high demand for upskilling, and proactive employer investments. With tools like GPT-5 being localized for India’s diverse linguistic landscape and a workforce eager to harness its potential, the country appears well-positioned to become not just a major AI consumer but also an influential contributor to its global evolution.
