By Anthony Hié, Chief Innovation & Digital Officer, Excelia
On 19 August 2025, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Go in India, a subscription priced at just ₹399 per month (under $5). This launch is not a simple commercial adjustment but a strategic move aimed at positioning the company at the heart of the most dynamic emerging market in the world. It is a calculated bet that combines demographic potential, economic pragmatism, and long-term geopolitical vision.
A Market Defined by Sheer Scale
India, with 1.4 billion inhabitants, represents a demographic force without equivalent. To put this into perspective, the entire French population accounts for less than 5% of India’s. Moreover, India’s median age is under 30, meaning that the country is not only vast but also young, digitally active, and ready to adopt new technologies at unprecedented speed. For OpenAI, the appeal is obvious: a single city in India can equal the size of a European country in terms of potential user base.
This is why the launch of ChatGPT Go carries such weight. It is not only about offering a new subscription tier; it is about securing a foothold in a nation whose scale of adoption could soon redefine the global balance of artificial intelligence usage.
Pricing in Line with Local Realities
Until now, ChatGPT Plus had been priced at around $25 per month, or ₹1,999. While acceptable in developed economies, that level of pricing was incompatible with Indian income levels. In a context where a junior developer typically earns between $100 and $200 monthly, paying one-fifth of a salary for an AI service was simply unrealistic.
At ₹399, ChatGPT Go addresses this barrier directly. It is a price that aligns with local purchasing power, while still ensuring profitability through volume. This alignment is crucial: an affordable tool has far greater potential to spread widely, integrate into daily professional and educational routines, and establish long-term user loyalty.
A Balanced, Accessible Feature Set
What distinguishes ChatGPT Go is not only its cost but also its structure. OpenAI has chosen a tiered adoption model: 10 times more capacity than the free version, allowing more queries, image generations, and uploads. 2 times longer memory, improving conversational continuity
Access to GPT-5, though without certain advanced features such as multimodal integration or connectors, which remain reserved for premium tiers.
This approach is deliberately calibrated. By offering enough power to transform the user experience without giving away everything, OpenAI ensures that ChatGPT Go is not seen as a secondary or inferior product, but as an accessible gateway. For many users, it will be the first serious contact with generative AI. For the company, it is a way to build dependency and prepare gradual upgrades toward higher-value subscriptions.
India as a Strategic Laboratory
The choice of India is not incidental. The country is undergoing rapid digitisation, driven by widespread smartphone penetration, affordable data plans, and a burgeoning start-up ecosystem. For hundreds of millions of young Indians, AI tools are not just a curiosity but a genuine lever for social mobility: improving English proficiency, acquiring coding skills, generating creative content, or even launching businesses with minimal initial capital.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged that India could soon overtake the United States as the company’s largest market. This was stated during the GPT‑5 launch event, where he described India as OpenAI’s second‑largest and rapidly growing market, and emphasized the remarkable rate at which Indian users are adopting AI. The decision to integrate UPI payments through platforms such as Google Pay, Paytm, or PhonePe removes friction for users. Data storage in India further reflects OpenAI’s recognition of local regulatory expectations and its intent to embed itself sustainably in this ecosystem.
Competitors are watching closely. Perplexity, among others, has made similar strategic moves in India, aware that this market is not only large but also trendsetting for other emerging economies in Asia and Africa.
Lessons for Europe
For Europe, the implications are significant. OpenAI’s prioritisation of emerging markets highlights the relative decline in strategic importance of developed economies in the diffusion of consumer AI. While Paris, Berlin, or Madrid debate regulation and digital sovereignty, Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai are actively becoming hubs of AI usage and experimentation. If Europe does not accelerate adoption by fostering innovation, adapting education, and facilitating access to AI tools, it risks ceding the initiative to economies where youth, scale, and affordability converge. The risk is not simply technological but geopolitical: the centre of gravity of AI innovation could decisively shift away from the West.
Beyond Commerce: A Geopolitical Play
ChatGPT Go is more than a cheaper subscription. It signals the emergence of AI geopolitics, where affordability and accessibility become tools of influence. By embedding its technology into the daily lives of millions of young Indians, OpenAI is laying the foundations of a new form of soft power. For India, this creates opportunities but also dependencies. For the rest of the world, it is a reminder that the future of AI will not be written exclusively in Silicon Valley or Brussels, but in the classrooms, offices, and households of the Global South.
In less than a decade, the balance of technological leadership could shift decisively. With ChatGPT Go, OpenAI has taken a step that is not just commercial, but civilisational.