OpenAI and Anthropic are accelerating efforts to expand their foothold in South Korea’s startup ecosystem after setting up Korean offices and stepping up their push into the market. They said Korean startups are creating innovative business cases using their AI models and that feedback from startups plays a meaningful role in improving the models. At NextRise Seoul 2026, OpenAI outlined support spanning frontier model access, early-stage assistance and community building, while Anthropic stressed an ecosystem approach and operates its Claude for Startups program.