Sam Altman unveils OpenAI next-gen model GPT-5, says India can overtake US to be world’s largest ChatGPT market

Sam Altman said that India, currently in the second-largest position, could soon become the largest market for OpenAI while unveiling the next-generation model, GPT-5, which will be available free to all users.

OpenAI CEO hopeful that India will become their largest market

"India is our second-largest market in the world after the US, and it may well become our largest market,” he remarked. “It's incredibly fast-growing, but what users are doing with AI, what citizens of India are doing with AI, is really quite remarkable.”

The OpenAI CEO described GPT-5 as a powerful tool for creative writing, advanced reasoning, and computer programming, calling it a “major upgrade” over previous iterations.

“For the first time, it really feels like talking to an expert in any topic,” he added.

Altman said that his company is focused on bringing products to India, working with local partners to make AI work great 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," Altman said during a media briefing.

About GPT-5

OpenAI described GPT-5 as its "best model yet for coding and agentic tasks".

The company shared that GPT-5 comes 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, the GPT-5 in the API platform is the reasoning model that powers maximum performance in ChatGPT.

Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, shared that the new model significantly improves understanding across more than 12 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 stated.

GPT-5 started rolling out on August 7 for free, Plus, and Pro users, with Enterprise and Education users getting access a week later.

Elon Musk took a jab at OpenAI, claiming it’s “going to eat Microsoft alive.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella responded, “People have been trying for 50 years and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete.”

He expressed his optimism for Musk’s xAI model, adding, “Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5!”

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