OpenAI is quickly increasing its inexpensive ChatGPT Go plan, which prices beneath $5, to 16 new international locations throughout Asia. The subscription tier is now accessible in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam.

In choose international locations corresponding to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Pakistan, the corporate is permitting customers to pay in native currencies. Within the remaining international locations, customers should pay in USD at a value of roughly $5, with the ultimate value various based mostly on native taxation.

ChatGPT Go provides customers larger every day limits for messages, picture era, and file or picture uploads per day. The plan additionally affords twice as a lot reminiscence because the free plan, enabling extra personalised responses.

In line with OpenAI, the growth comes as the corporate has seen its weekly energetic consumer base in Southeast Asia develop by as much as 4 instances. The plan was first launched in India in August, adopted by Indonesia in September. OpenAI studies that paid subscribers in India have doubled because the launch.

OpenAI is competing with Google to make inexpensive AI chatbot subscription plans accessible in additional areas. Google launched its equally priced Google AI Plus plan in Indonesia in September, adopted by growth to over 40 international locations. The Plus tier provides customers entry to Gemini 2.5 Professional, Google’s most superior AI mannequin, together with artistic instruments for picture and video creation — together with Circulation (for design), Whisk (for picture remixing), and Veo 3 Quick (for video creation) — in addition to 200GB of cloud storage.

The growth comes at a pivotal second for OpenAI. At its DevDay 2025 convention this week in San Francisco, CEO Sam Altman introduced that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly energetic customers globally, up from 700 million in August. The corporate additionally unveiled a significant platform shift, introducing apps that work straight inside ChatGPT and that remodel the chatbot into an ecosystem that’s just like an app retailer, with companions like Spotify, Zillow, and Coursera, amongst others.

“The evolution we’re attempting to make over the following few years is one the place ChatGPT itself is extra like an working system the place you’ll be able to come and use purposes,” the top of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, instructed TechCrunch of the event on the outskirts of the occasion. “If you wish to write, there’s an app for that. If you wish to code, there’s an app for that. If you wish to work together with items and providers, there are purposes for you.”

Regardless of OpenAI’s speedy development and up to date $500 billion valuation, the corporate reported a $7.8 billion working loss within the first half of 2025 because it continues spending closely on AI infrastructure. The corporate’s inexpensive subscription tiers, like ChatGPT Go, are seen as an necessary step towards reaching profitability whereas increasing its world consumer base, notably in high-growth markets throughout Asia the place each OpenAI and Google are aggressively competing for market share.