OpenAI has hired Prabhjeet Singh, the former president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for India. The hire is the clearest signal yet of how seriously the company views the Indian market.
Singh announced his departure from Uber on Friday and will join OpenAI in September. He’ll report to Kiran Mani, the company’s Asia Pacific managing director, and oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, and regulatory engagement across India.
OpenAI has been building its India presence for a while now. It opened its first New Delhi office in August 2025 and has since announced plans for locations in Mumbai and Bengaluru. Earlier partnerships span higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and a content deal with JioHotstar backed by Reliance. The company also tapped Tata Group for data center capacity.
Why India? numbers help tell the story. OpenAI says 18-to-24-year-olds account for nearly half of all ChatGPT usage in the country. The company called India its second-largest market after the U.S.
The competitive angle matters too. Anthropic opened its Bengaluru office in late 2025 and recently named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to lead the operation. The battle for AI market share — and talent — in India is heating up.
Singh’s appointment also reflects a broader strategy: hiring local operators who understand the regulatory landscape and consumer behavior rather than flying people in from San Francisco. For OpenAI, India isn’t just a growth market. It’s becoming a test case for how AI companies expand in complex, price-sensitive economies.
