OpenAI Korea marked its first anniversary with a Seoul press conference, highlighting rapid AI adoption across Korean enterprises in legal, sales, finance, and marketing, and reporting strong growth in both enterprise and consumer use of ChatGPT.

Enterprise usage has surged, with ChatGPT Enterprise users in Korea up 28-fold and Codex and Work users up about 14-fold since March, while consumer usage shows a strong lift as ChatGPT MAU rose 42% to 17.1 million in August and average monthly usage time grew from 115 to 141 minutes.

Korean consumer engagement also includes rising weekly active users, reflecting broadening daily interaction with ChatGPT and related tools.

Ongoing Stargate project and broader cooperation with Samsung and SK Group focus on AI infrastructure and supply chains, with data center needs and timing dependent on coordination and unresolved issues.

Korean government support for a domestic AI model is noted, with OpenAI stressing the importance of a locally developed model at multiple price points to bolster Korea’s AI ecosystem, supply chain, and talent pool.

Daybreak Partners will launch a cybersecurity initiative with Samsung SDS as the first domestic pilot partner, helping firms detect, verify, and respond to security vulnerabilities via AI.

OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Astra, a new model capable of direct computer use and cross-app reasoning to widen enterprise automation without requiring full system overhauls.

Plans for AI infrastructure localization include data residency in Korea for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu/API, progress toward a reasoning residency, and ongoing talks on domestic GPU provisioning and cost considerations.

OpenAI also plans to support inference residency and establish a local data center in Korea, offering data residency options for ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu, and API customers.

Korean companies are applying AI beyond research to business workflows, with Samsung Electronics using ChatGPT Enterprise and Codex globally and Seoul National University deploying ChatGPT Edu for about 50,000 faculty and students.

AI adoption spans multiple sectors, expanding tasks from information gathering and drafting to investigation, analysis, software development, and automation across major firms and institutions.

OpenAI is strengthening its local partner ecosystem in Korea through the OpenAI Partner Network, engaging leading SI firms, MSPs, and AI startups to accelerate adoption.