OpenAI has expanded its sub-$5 ChatGPT Go subscription to 16 new countries in Asia, a move driven by a reported four-fold increase in its weekly active user base throughout Southeast Asia following its initial launch in the region.
The service 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. This expansion follows the plan’s initial introduction in India in August and Indonesia in September. For customers in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Pakistan, OpenAI is facilitating payments in local currencies. In the remaining 11 new markets, the subscription is priced at approximately $5 USD, with the final cost subject to variation based on local taxes.
The ChatGPT Go plan provides subscribers with higher daily limits on messages, image generation, and file or image uploads compared to the free version. It also includes twice the memory of the free plan, which enables the platform to deliver more personalized responses based on previous interactions. OpenAI attributes the expansion to significant user engagement, citing that its weekly active user base in Southeast Asia has grown by as much as four times. In India, where the plan first launched, the number of paid subscribers has doubled since August.
This expansion places OpenAI in direct competition with Google, which has also been making its affordable AI subscription plans more widely available. Google introduced its similarly priced Google AI Plus plan in Indonesia in September and has subsequently rolled it out to over 40 countries.
Introducing Google AI Plus, our newest plan designed to empower people in emerging markets to do more with Google AI, for less.
With @Google AI Plus, you get more access to Gemini 2.5 Pro and creative tools like Flow, Whisk, and video creation with Veo 3 Fast. This plan also… pic.twitter.com/GFOPBcm7uC
— Google Gemini App (@GeminiApp) September 9, 2025
The Google AI Plus tier offers users access to its Gemini 2.5 Pro model, a suite of creative tools including Flow for design, Whisk for image remixing, and Veo 3 Fast for video creation. The subscription also includes 200 GB of cloud storage.
The announcement from OpenAI coincides with its DevDay 2025 conference held in San Francisco. During the event, CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT’s global user base has reached 800 million weekly active users. This figure represents an increase from the 700 million weekly active users the company reported in August.
At the conference, OpenAI also revealed a significant strategic shift for its platform, introducing applications that function directly within the ChatGPT interface. This development aims to transform the chatbot into an ecosystem comparable to an app store, featuring launch partners such as Spotify, Zillow, and Coursera. Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT, provided further details on this strategy to TechCrunch on the outskirts of the event. “The evolution we’re trying to make over the next few years is one where ChatGPT itself is more like an operating system where you can come and use applications,”
“If you want to write, there’s an app for that. If you want to code, there’s an app for that. If you want to interact with goods and services, there are applications for you,” Turley told TechCrunch.
