Grab and OpenAI Announce AI Skills Training Program for 30,000 Southeast Asian Partners

Grab and OpenAI announced the 'GO Forward with AI' practical AI skills training program for Southeast Asian partners on September 23, 2026. This program will provide AI training specialized for work and business use to a total of 30,000 Grab drivers, delivery partners, and merchants over the next two years.

Regional Expansion and Training Method

The program starts in Singapore and will expand across Southeast Asia in the coming months, localizing the curriculum to meet local demands in each country. Training is conducted as half-day in-person workshops based on the OpenAI Academy curriculum, and GrabAcademy trainers are trained to build the capacity to deliver training to more partners in the long term.

Partner Demand and Use Cases

According to a survey of Grab partners in Singapore, 50% of drivers and delivery partners are already using AI tools, and 87% of non-users are open to using them. The workshops involve hands-on tasks such as converting sales data into dashboards or building websites using ChatGPT Work. Previously, since 2024, the Grab Driver AI Assistant, based on OpenAI models, has assisted approximately 500,000 drivers.

Core Value and Expected Impact

OpenAI and Grab expect this collaboration to help close the competitiveness gap by enabling small teams and resource-constrained platform workers to perform information analysis and planning directly through AI. Oliver Jay, OpenAI International Managing Director, noted that while ChatGPT adoption rates in Southeast Asia are high, utilization is still in the early stages, and set a goal to increase efficiency through the use of agentic AI.