OpenAI to Indonesia: Don’t just use ChatGPT – build with it

Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, has a message for Indonesia: You’re already using AI. Now it’s time to start building with it.

On stage at the first Asia Economic Summit in Jakarta, Chatterji said the country is among OpenAI’s fastest-growing markets in Asia. And with ChatGPT users tripling over the past year, the country is among the top three in Asia Pacific.

However, most users are using the AI tool primarily for learning, writing, and image generating. When it comes to developers, Indonesia still lags behind.

Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist, on stage at the first Asia Economic Summit in Jakarta on June 26, 2025 / Photo credit: Tech in Asia

Chatterji sees this as a missed opportunity, especially as OpenAI prepares to roll out open-weight models.

“The key transition now is from adopters to creators,” Chatterji said. “That means building on the APIs, developing local solutions to local problems.”

A dramatic shift

Before joining OpenAI in 2024, Chatterji taught business and public policy at Duke University. He also served in the White House during the Biden administration.

At OpenAI, Chatterji digs into how AI is reshaping the global economy – tracking its impact on growth, infrastructure spending, and the labor market. He also explores what it means for workers navigating these shifts.

According to Chatterji, the stakes are high in Indonesia – a country that produces over 300,000 STEM graduates annually. He believes this talent pool could be instrumental in determining how to deploy AI in sectors like healthcare, education, agriculture, and energy.

The executive was also bullish on how AI can democratize access to services. In agriculture, for instance, generative AI may replicate the role of extension workers through mobile phones. These workers advise farmers on important matters like seeds and fertilizers, but their ranks are small.

“It is going to take a lot of public and private partnerships to get this right, but I do think it’s within our reach,” Chatterji said.

Trust will also be a crucial factor, he noted, especially as data sovereignty becomes a top concern in many countries.

Chatterji pointed out that AI’s economic efficiency is already happening. For instance, computing costs have dropped from US$66 per million tokens for GPT-4 in 2023 to just 13 cents today. He called this shift “dramatic.”

Still, he cautioned that AI adoption will move at different speeds depending on the sector, particularly in regulated industries like healthcare and education.