OpenAI unveils India-first plan, to give 500K free ChatGPT licences

Programme to benefit government school teachers, engineering students

Sam Altman-led OpenAI on Monday said it would provide 5 lakh free ChatGPT licences for six months to students and teachers in India across government schools from Classes 1 to 12, engineering and technical institutes, as well as K-12 educators.

 

“We believe AI (artificial intelligence) has potential to transform education for students. AI can be a personal lifelong tutor and learning agent. For educators, AI can free up time for them to focus more on the core part of teaching,” said Leah Belsky, vice-president of Education at OpenAI, at a media briefing.

 

The programme for students and teachers will be run under the OpenAI Learning Accelerator, an India-first initiative. The company is not looking to monetise through these free ChatGPT licences as of now, Belsky said, adding that the focus for now was “access and training.”

 

“So, the broader hope is that we can enable a community of 500,000 users with a focus on educators to learn how they are using ChatGPT and then replicate those learnings. That is really the focus,” she said, responding to a question from Business Standard.

 

As part of the programme, ChatGPT licences will be distributed in India in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MoE), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and schools that are members of the Association for Reinventing School Education (ARISE). 

 

The MoE will help OpenAI identify government schools where ChatGPT can enhance teachers’ lesson planning, student engagement, and outcomes. Similarly, AICTE and ARISE will help expand access to tools like ChatGPT’s study mode at scale, apart from strengthening digital skills, employability, and practical AI use, the company said.

 

In July, OpenAI introduced the study mode in ChatGPT to help students work through problems instead of simply receiving answers. In study mode, ChatGPT prompts students to interact with questions tailored to their objectives and skill level, helping them build deeper subject understanding.

 

The new mode was developed on system instructions designed by OpenAI in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts, the company had said.

 

On Monday, OpenAI also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras for joint research on how AI can improve learning outcomes and foster innovative teaching methods aligned with cognitive neuroscience insights. OpenAI will grant $500,000 to IIT Madras for the research project, the company said.

 

“The intent is to study over a period of time the impact AI can have on learning and how teaching can be made better using AI tools. When the study results are published in a few months, we will also make them public. We hope that some of the research will help make our learning tools better,” said Raghav Gupta, head of Education at OpenAI in India and Asia Pacific.

 

Gupta’s appointment, also announced on Monday, is in line with OpenAI’s recent decision to expand its team in the country, along with opening an office in New Delhi. The company is also expected to hire more people in communications and marketing roles in the coming weeks, according to industry executives.