SEOUL – South Korea has the second-highest number of paid ChatGPT subscribers in the world, behind only the US. But that headline, announced by OpenAI on Monday during a press event in Seoul, may not mean exactly what it seems at first glance.

The statement came from Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer, who was in town to announce the company’s new Seoul office, which is its third major base in Asia after Tokyo and Singapore.

According to Kwon, Korea is now a top-five country for ChatGPT business users and ranks in the global top ten for both overall usage and developer activity on OpenAI’s API. Sandy Kunvatanagarn, OpenAI’s head of policy for the Asia-Pacific region, added in a LinkedIn post on Monday that weekly active users in Korea had grown 4.5 times in the past year, calling the growth “off the charts.”

This paints a picture of a digitally hungry nation embracing generative AI faster than almost anywhere else. And while the core fact is true — that Korea really is ranked second in paid ChatGPT users — experts told The Korea Herald that this ranking doesn’t necessarily signal leadership in AI adoption. The real reasons may have more to do with Korea’s digital infrastructure and societal patterns than with a sudden surge in AI fluency or technological edge, they said.

“It’s a real number, but it needs context,” said Kang Jung-soo, director of local AI startup BludotAI Research Center and a frequent commentator about AI on public broadcasts. “Paid subscribers are just one piece of the story. You can be second in the world with only a small margin. It doesn’t mean you have a dominant or mature market.”

OpenAI hasn’t released exact subscriber figures by country. What is known is that ChatGPT had around 20 million paying subscribers globally as of April 2025. But there’s no breakdown of how many are in the US or in Korea, or whether the ranking reflects long-term paying users or a temporary spike. At the same time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told TED on April 12 that total weekly active users, including free and paid, had doubled in recent weeks, possibly surpassing 800 million.

This is where the picture shifts. In South Korea, usage data tells a much broader story than subscriptions alone. WiseApp, a Seoul-based analytics firm that tracks mobile behavior through panel data, reported that 17.4 million people in Korea used the ChatGPT mobile app in April. That’s more than a third of the country’s entire population.

“Where ChatGPT is exploding in Korea is not in premium usage,” said Kang. “It’s in sheer accessibility. Everyone has the internet. Everyone has a smartphone. It’s not surprising that people try it, use it often, and integrate it quickly into daily life.”

The infrastructure figures back this up. Smartphone usage in South Korea exceeds 95 percent, according to Gallup Korea polls in 2023. Virtually all households have broadband. These are hard conditions to replicate, even in other developed countries.

In many parts of Europe, AI tools also face delays due to strict data protection laws and digital service regulations. Korean users gained relatively early access to the newest models.

That first-mover exposure matters. Professor Choi Byung-ho of Korea University’s AI Research Institute explains why Korea tends to lead in adoption metrics. “This is a society that moves fast,” he said. “Half the population lives in one metropolitan region. News, trends, apps … they spread overnight. AI tools don’t feel abstract here. They feel immediate.”

Choi also believes that cultural memory plays a role. He points to 2016, when Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, an event that deeply influenced public perception of AI. “That wasn’t just a sports loss. It was a wake-up call,” he said. “AI became something you couldn’t ignore. I think many Koreans still carry that sense that they have to stay ahead, or at least not fall behind.”

Asia News Network/The Korea Herald