NEW DELHI: OpenAI‘s push to reach more Indians starts with how they ask a question. Users who go straight to ChatGPT’s dictation button rather than type are shaping the company’s focus on voice, Hindi and other Indian languages, its India MD Prabhjeet Singh said.India is already ChatGPT’s largest consumer user market globally, according to Singh. Reaching a wider audience means making the service easier to use for people, who prefer speaking to typing, communicate in Indian languages or own entry-level smartphones. “Most of India actually doesn’t use English as a primary. So real big focus is on Hindi and vernacular,” Singh told TOI. Work on those capabilities through the year was beginning to show results, he said.Alongside expanding access, OpenAI is engaging with the govt on data protection, model safety and cybersecurity. Singh said the company was making its models available as part of discussions on protecting businesses and govt infrastructure.“It is important that companies, govt infrastructure is protected against potential bad actors,” he said. “So, I think we are making our models available at different levels of dialogue.”He described the discussions as constructive, but did not specify which models were being made available, the recipients or the arrangements involved. Constructive regulation could strengthen confidence among consumers and enterprises and support wider adoption, he said.For individual users, the challenge extends beyond language. Singh said OpenAI was working to ensure that smartphones with limited memory could deliver the full model experience. ChatGPT Go was introduced with affordability in mind.The company is also looking beyond programmers and office workers. Singh cited traders using ChatGPT to create customised festive messages for customers and single-person shops exploring help with marketing and inventory management – tasks for which larger businesses can employ dedicated teams. He did not provide figures showing how widely small businesses were using these tools or the savings they had achieved.
