OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has praised the pace of AI adoption in India, saying it is “outpacing the world”. Altman’s comments come amid the viral trend of Studio Ghibli-style images taking over the internet (particularly among Indian audiences) after OpenAI unlocked native image generation capabilities in the GPT-4o language model running ChatGPT.
“what’s happening with ai adoption in india right now is amazing to watch. we love to see the explosion of creativity–india is outpacing the world.” Altman wrote in a post on X.
Shortly afterwards, the OpenAI CEO made another attempt to connect with his company’s Indian audience by sharing an animated image of himself as an Indian cricketer. The OpenAI CEO is ,however, not the first to link cricket with ChatGPT’s new image-generation capabilities. At the height of the Studio Ghibli-style image trend, Indian fans took to social media to recreate many famous cricketing moments in their history, from the 1983 and 2011 World Cups to more recent victories such as the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy.
What did Sam Altman say about India during February visit?
Sam Altman had also highlighted the importance of Indian market for the AI startup during his visit to India in February this year where he called the country his second biggest market after the US.
“India is an incredibly important market for AI in general, for OpenAI in particular. It’s our second biggest market after the US. Users here have tripled in the last year. The innovation that’s happening, what people are building [in India], it’s really incredible. We’re excited to do much, much more here, and I think it’s (the Indian AI program) a great plan.” Altman said at the time.
“I think India should be one of the leaders of AI revolution. It’s really quite amazing to see what the country has done and embrace the technology and build it. ” the OpenAI CEO added.
ChatGPT’s viral Ghibli moment and what led to it?
ChatGPT unlocked native image generation capabilities in GPT-4o last week, which essentially means that ChatGPT can now generate images using its underlying base model, rather than relying on an external model such as DALL-E 3 (also from OpenAI). The new capability allows ChatGPT to retain its textual knowledge base (including real world information) to generate more contextually aware and nuanced images.
While in its launch blog, OpenAI showed several ways the new capabilities could be used, including creating infographics, photorealistic images of historical figures, turning sketches into images, posters, and even full PPT slides, the chatbot’s ability to convert real-world images into Studio Ghibli’s inconic animation resonated most with users.
