OpenAI Launches Commercial Operations in Brazil

The American company is setting up a team in São Paulo and building connections with universities, cities, developers, and creators. This initiative includes training, a hackathon, tools for education and health, while the use of ChatGPT and Codex is rapidly increasing in the country.

Creation and Voice: Initial Collaborations and a Creators Day

OpenAI has collaborated with Brazilian artist Alcione around ChatGPT Voice, in a conversation dedicated to love and relationships. The company also held its very first Creators Day in São Paulo to meet the local community. Brazil has the highest usage rate of ChatGPT Images globally and ranks among the top five markets for voice features and dictation, with the number of weekly voice users doubling in twelve months. Creators like Dell Nunes, who incorporates local cultural elements into his AI-generated works, and Paulo Aguiar, who combines text, image, video, and music while maintaining human artistic direction, embody these practices. Thaís Martan plans to use ChatGPT Work during a catamaran trip. OpenAI describes a long-term effort with Brazilian creators to listen to their needs, share tools, and support new forms of expression and more sustainable activities.

A Tour for Developers and a Codex-Centered Hackathon

In the week leading up to the launch, OpenAI organized its first OpenAI para Devs tour. Conducted entirely in Portuguese, it brought together 285 technical profiles in Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Florianópolis, and São Paulo, featuring presentations, Codex demonstrations, hands-on workshops, and engaging sessions with Adapta and Brendi. The team directly gathered developers' needs regarding tools, resources, and local support. The tour concluded with the OpenAI Brasil Hackathon, a day in São Paulo where participants transformed ideas into projects using Codex. The winning team built a prototype aimed at micro and small businesses to identify public markets, relying on public data, a voice description of the activity, matching with opportunities, and identifying nearby public demand, all within a few hours.

Universities, Health, Justice, and SMEs: Announced Partnerships

OpenAI is partnering with the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica to provide ChatGPT Edu accounts to students, teachers, and staff, with credits for advanced capabilities, including reasoning models and Codex. Through its global grant program, IMPA will study the conditions necessary to convert access to AI into scientific progress. HCFMUSP plans to evaluate a prototype of a person-centered clinical information infrastructure for the public health system, preserving medical judgment and human oversight. With ENTER, OpenAI is developing a national AI culture program for legal professionals, combining the use of ChatGPT with training for critical, safe, and effective employment. In partnership with Estímulo, a free mobile-focused training will be offered to micro and small businesses, covering practical cases in marketing, sales, customer relations, finance, productivity, and management. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with the city of São Paulo, via Prodam, to make AI available to the capital and other administrations. The local team aims to identify use cases, prepare teams, build responsible governance, and amplify conclusive approaches, supporting professionals, businesses, academia, and authorities.

Increasing Adoption: Professional Uses and Developer Ecosystem

In Brazil, by June 2026, 35% of classified messages from individual accounts were work-related, compared to 30% globally. For these professional conversations, 53% focused on completing a task or producing a deliverable, such as proposals, analyses, code, or marketing materials. On the developer side, the country ranks second globally in the number of OpenAI API users and is the leading market for Codex in Latin America. Since the beginning of 2026, weekly Codex users have more than quintupled, and daily interactions have nearly tripled. In businesses, the number of ChatGPT Enterprise seats in Brazil has increased fivefold over the year, and the country is among the top ten commercial markets for OpenAI. Sectors such as finance, commerce, mobility, customer service, software development, and internal operations are already among the observed uses.

Establishment in São Paulo and Economic Ambitions

OpenAI has opened commercial operations in Brazil and established a team in São Paulo, aiming to work with businesses, developers, researchers, and public institutions. The stated goal is to steer the rapid adoption of AI towards tangible economic and social benefits. Brazil is among the top three markets for ChatGPT in terms of weekly active users, with a user base nearly doubled in a year and about 215 million messages sent each day. Sam Altman highlights the creativity of local players and a long-term commitment. An estimate from RegLab, funded by OpenAI, assesses the potential contribution of AI to be nearly 1 trillion R$ by 2030, contingent on skills, research, responsible deployment, and institutional cooperation. Examples of entrepreneurship include Lina Prades, who has designed two management applications, and Ariane Santos, who organizes her activities using ChatGPT, illustrating these uses. OpenAI indicates a desire to draw inspiration from Brazilian practices and contribute to making AI adoption a source of better products, more robust businesses, optimized services, and new opportunities, marking the beginning of a long-term commitment.