OpenAI poaches Uber India chief to lead its biggest market outside the US

The hire marks OpenAI's latest investment in India. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and earlier this year said it would establish new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru . In 2024, it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships before expanding her role to head of strategy and global affairs last year.

OpenAI had earlier brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help establish its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy. Over the past few months, OpenAI struck partnerships in the nation spanning higher education , enterprise payments , AI-powered commerce , and web streaming , while also becoming part of the country's growing data center build-out . OpenAI has pointed to India's rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as a sign of the market's importance.

Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are also among its early partners in the market. The company has simultaneously ramped up hiring in India, with openings including AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. India has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds for U.S. AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, more than a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI.