OpenAI has tapped Kiran Mani, the outgoing CEO of Indian streaming giant JioStar (a Reliance-Disney joint venture) as its new managing director for the Asia-Pacific region. Mani will assume the role later this year, in June, marking a major step in OpenAI’s efforts to deepen its presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
Mani brings more than 25 years of experience scaling large digital platforms across consumer technology, mobile ecosystems, cloud services, and media streaming. Before leading JioStar — where he oversaw JioHotstar’s growth to over 300 million subscribers by capitalizing on cricket, soap operas, and reality content — he served as CEO of Viacom18’s digital business. Earlier in his career, he spent over 13 years at Google as General Manager and Managing Director for Android and Google Play across Asia-Pacific and Japan, and held senior roles at Microsoft and IBM spanning India, the US, and in other markets. He holds credentials as a Chartered Financial Analyst and a PGDBA from IBS Hyderabad as well.
The hire comes as OpenAI is ramping up its global expansion at a time when it is witnessing rising competition from Anthropic and Google. Asia, particularly India, with its 1.4 billion population and rapidly digitizing economy, has become a major battleground of this competition. India already ranks as OpenAI’s second-largest market globally by weekly active users. Still, India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act and Singapore’s PDPA require careful navigation on data sovereignty,
India alone is already OpenAI’s second-largest market globally, with more than 100 million weekly ChatGPT users as of early 2026. Meanwhile, Japan leads in enterprise adoption outside the US, and multiple APAC countries feature among the top markets for Codex. OpenAI has steadily built local infrastructure – it opened offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Australia, Korea, and India over the past two years, and announced a major collaboration with the Tata Group last month to develop AI tech and data-center capacity in the region. The company also hired its first India-based government-relations lead in 2024 – Pragya Mishra.
This development comes as part of OpenAI’s broader enterprise pivot under applications chief Fidji Simo, which includes the recent consolidation of ChatGPT, Codex, and Atlas into a desktop super app. Success in APAC could materially accelerate revenue growth ahead of a potential IPO, especially if Mani can replicate JioHotstar’s consumer scale for OpenAI as well.
To compare, Anthropic has been expanding aggressively in the Asia-Pacific region as well – the first Asia-Pacific office in Tokyo in late 2025, followed by Bengaluru in February 2026 (its second APAC hub). India is Claude’s second-largest consumer market globally after the US. Leadership in India is handled by Irina Ghose (former Microsoft India MD). OpenAI leverages its massive ChatGPT user base in India and Japan for broader adoption, while Anthropic pushes ahead in developer/enterprise niches – Claude is useful for coding.
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