OpenAI poaches Uber India chief to lead its biggest market outside the US
Score
50Why selected
This is a key market personnel change at a leading AI company with direct impact on competitive dynamics, though not a technology breakthrough.
AI commentary
「This signals OpenAI's accelerated push into India, the world's second-largest internet market with huge AI potential, potentially reshaping the AI competitive landscape in India.」
Quick overview
OpenAI hires the former head of Uber India to lead its largest market outside the US. This move signals OpenAI's accelerated expansion in India, including expanding offices, deepening partnerships, and ramping up hiring to tap into the country's fast-growing AI demand.
- OpenAI appoints former Uber India chief to lead its India operations
- India is OpenAI's largest market outside the US
- OpenAI plans to expand offices and increase hiring in India
- This move is part of OpenAI's global expansion strategy
Full text
OpenAI is making yet another big, visible bet on India. It has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for the country to scale its presence in what it has called its second-largest market after the U.S.
Singh, who announced his resignation from Uber on Friday, will join OpenAI in September and report to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing director for Asia Pacific, the company told TechCrunch. He will be responsible for OpenAI’s performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations, the company said.
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. Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025 and earlier this year named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its India head.
Topics
AI, India, OpenAI, Prabhjeet Singh, Startups, Transportation, UberWhen you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Jagmeet Singh
Reporter
Jagmeet covers startups, tech policy-related updates, and all other major tech-centric developments from India for TechCrunch. He previously worked as a principal correspondent at NDTV.
You can contact or verify outreach from Jagmeet by emailing mail@journalistjagmeet.com.
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