Top tech and startup stories to start your day with

India has emerged as ChatGPT's most prominent market worldwide, boasting a double-digit user base since January of this year, according to OpenAI India's managing director Prabhjeet Singh. Singh, speaking in his first media interview since joining OpenAI in August, noted that the surge in users signifies growing relevance and deep use cases for the AI platform.

OpenAI is anticipated to reveal plans concerning UPI and payments in the coming weeks, while the company is witnessing a shift from pilot projects and demonstrations towards scaled adoption and production-scale deployments in the enterprise sector. Singh also emphasized that OpenAI is actively collaborating with government agencies and enterprises to address potential misuse of autonomous AI agents and protect critical infrastructure.

Ride-hailing startup Rapido has reached $4 billion in annualized gross order value (GOV) within two years, quadrupling its scale. The company has expanded its services to include food delivery through its Ownly platform, which has since expanded to Hyderabad, Kolkata, and New Delhi. Rapido's gross order value grew to around 8.3 million daily orders, with ride-hailing accounting for more than 95% of the orders.

The company has also expanded to nearly 500 cities, claiming a 60% market share across bikes, auto rickshaws, and four-wheeler cabs, according to industry executives.