AI labs are doing all they can to woo the massive market of India.
OpenAI has signed cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as a partner, in a tie-up that shows how seriously the company is courting Indian consumers, a market it now counts as its second-largest in the world. Tendulkar announced the partnership in a social media post. “We have some interesting things coming up, and I can’t wait to share them with you,” he wrote, without giving details on what the collaboration will involve. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
In the post, Tendulkar said he has always been curious, and that ChatGPT has encouraged the habit of one question leading to another. He also said it has proved useful for getting things done, citing the planning of his last family trip as an example. What he’s looking forward to, he said, is discovering what else he can do with ChatGPT, sharing what he finds useful, and encouraging more people to try it with something they care about. Tendulkar also shared a video of himself interacting with ChatGPT through its voice mode, in which ChatGPT guesses who he is after a bunch of questions.
The tone of the announcement is telling. Rather than pitching a product feature, the message is about everyday use: a question, an idea, something you’ve always wanted to explore. That fits where OpenAI’s India business currently stands. The country has more than 100 million weekly ChatGPT users, many of them students, but the vast majority use the free tier, so the challenge is less about awareness and more about turning casual use into habit and, eventually, revenue.
Tendulkar is hardly a stranger to the platform’s Indian story. During the Ghibli-style image craze, OpenAI said India had become its fastest-growing market, and Sam Altman replied to images Tendulkar had posted, creating one of himself as an Indian cricketer.
The partnership also arrives after a year of sustained investment in India. OpenAI opened an office in New Delhi in 2025 and began hiring for sales roles in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It then launched ChatGPT Go in India at Rs. 399 per month, a cheaper tier aimed at the country’s price-sensitive users, and later made the plan free for a year for Indian users.
In February this year, at the India AI Impact Summit, OpenAI announced “OpenAI for India”, an initiative that began with a partnership with the Tata Group. OpenAI will be the first customer of TCS’s HyperVault data centre business, starting with 100 MW of capacity and the potential to scale to 1 GW. Tata will also deploy ChatGPT Enterprise across its workforce. OpenAI has said it plans to open new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru, alongside its existing presence in New Delhi.
Those moves have mostly targeted enterprises, infrastructure and policymakers. Bringing in one of India’s most recognisable and trusted public figures is aimed at a different audience: everyday users who may have heard of ChatGPT but haven’t found a reason to make it part of their routine.
The competition for those users is intensifying. Google has offered free Gemini access to Indian students, and Perplexity has bundled its premium plan with Airtel subscriptions. A celebrity partner won’t settle that contest by itself, but in a market where trust and familiarity count for a great deal, few names carry as much weight as Tendulkar’s.
What the partnership actually produces, whether campaigns, content or product tie-ins, remains to be seen. Tendulkar has said more is coming soon.