OpenAI joins India's "subsidy war": ChatGPT Go to be free for users for one year

OpenAI has announced that it will provide its ChatGPT Go service for free to users in India for a year in order to increase its competitiveness in this market with a population of 1.4 billion. The world's most valuable startup company will kick off this free promotion on November 4, coinciding with its first DevDay Exchange event in India. Registered users will receive one year of free access to ChatGPT Go. The service was first launched in India in August this year with an annual fee of 399 rupees (less than 5 dollars), making it the cheapest paid tier. OpenAI stated that since its launch in August, ChatGPT Go has quickly gained popularity and helped the company double its number of paying subscribers in India. The San Francisco-based startup has since expanded ChatGPT Go to nearly 90 markets globally, with India remaining a key focus for the entire industry. Behind this move, AI model developers are seeking to attract users and gain access to the raw human data generated by millions of English users in India - for example, competitor Perplexity AI Inc. offers its premium package for free through a partnership with telecom giant Bharti Airtel Ltd; Alphabet Inc.'s Google is offering a free one-year membership to Gemini AI Pro for students. In terms of product features, ChatGPT Go combines the most popular features of the chat Siasun Robot & Automation, providing higher message limits, more image generations, and larger file upload capacity compared to the standard free version. In a statement on Tuesday, OpenAI said, "India is the second largest market for ChatGPT and one of the fastest growing markets."