The Era of "Value for Money" with ChatGPT and Gemini: How Will the Surge of Low-Cost Plans Impact Korea?

As OpenAI and Google continue to introduce low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) service plans, the search market for domestic platforms such as Naver and Kakao-which are already losing ground to AI services like ChatGPT and Gemini-has inevitably been impacted. There is also considerable demand among domestic users, who have a high proportion of paid AI subscriptions, to switch to these more affordable plans.

On January 28, Google announced the launch of its "Google AI Plus" plan in 35 new countries and regions, including South Korea. Google first introduced this plan in emerging markets, starting with Indonesia in September last year, followed by India, Mexico, Egypt, Vietnam, and about 40 other countries.

The domestic launch price for Google AI Plus is 11,000 KRW per month, which is 18,000 KRW cheaper than the existing Google AI Pro plan (29,000 KRW per month). To celebrate the new plan, Google is offering new subscribers a 50% discount for the first two months, making it available at 5,500 KRW per month. In the US market, the price is $7.99 per month, which is $12 less than the Pro plan at $19.99 per month.

Despite the lower price, users can still access the most frequently used services. The Google AI Plus plan allows users to utilize Google's generative AI features, including Gemini's inference model "Gemini 3 Pro," the image generation AI "Nano Banana Pro," the AI-based video creation tool "Flow," and the research and writing support tool "NotebookLM." The plan also provides 200 AI credits per month, which can be used for services such as video creation. In comparison, the free plan offers 100 credits per month, while the Pro plan provides 1,000 credits per month.

Previously, OpenAI, which provides ChatGPT, also expanded the service area for its low-cost plan "ChatGPT Go" globally on January 16. ChatGPT Go offers higher limits for messages, file uploads, and image generation compared to the free version, and allows access to OpenAI's latest model, GPT-5.2. The domestic price for ChatGPT Go is 15,000 KRW per month, which is 14,000 KRW cheaper than the existing Plus plan (29,000 KRW per month).

Low-Cost Plan Competition to Secure Revenue Models

The reason AI companies are introducing low-cost plans is interpreted as part of their efforts to secure sustainable revenue models. While the development of AI models and operation of services require massive computing resources such as graphic processing units (GPUs), there are limits to the revenue that can be generated from chatbot services alone. For example, as of July last year, ChatGPT had approximately 35 million paid subscribers worldwide (including corporate accounts), accounting for only 4-5% of total users, which is insufficient for robust profitability.

OpenAI is also increasing its efforts to improve profitability by testing the introduction of advertisements on ChatGPT in the US market. Ads are shown only to free users and ChatGPT Go users, and are provided separately from chatbot responses. OpenAI reportedly expects to generate about $2 in annual revenue per free user through the introduction of ads.

As AI service fees become more affordable, the impact on the domestic market is expected to be significant. This is because the number of domestic users opting for AI services from OpenAI and Google, instead of search portals like Naver and Kakao, continues to grow.

According to the "Open Survey AI Search Trend Report 2026" published by the consumer data platform Open Survey, the proportion of domestic users who reported using ChatGPT and Gemini for search purposes increased significantly last year. Specifically, the percentage of users who said they used ChatGPT for search purposes rose from 39.6% in March last year to 54.5% in December, an increase of 14.9 percentage points. During the same period, the percentage of respondents who used Gemini for search increased from 9.5% to 28.9%, a rise of 19.4 percentage points.

According to market research firm Sensor Tower, South Korea accounted for 5.4% of ChatGPT's revenue by country, ranking second after the United States (35.4%). Kyunghoon Kim, Country Manager of OpenAI Korea, also stated that South Korea has the highest proportion of paid ChatGPT subscribers per capita in the world.