India is at the forefront in using AI
Citing its latest report for India on Wednesday, OpenAI said that India is one of the largest and fastest growing Artificial Intelligence (AI) markets in the world. According to this, India is far ahead especially in terms of coding, data analysis and complex logic, but compared to other countries, the acceptance rate of AI is higher in big cities. According to OpenAI, India is among the top five countries globally in terms of per capita use of thinking ability. Users here are regularly communicating with AI to solve complex problems.
OpenAI's Codex app (AI coding tool) saw a four-fold increase in users in India within just two weeks of its launch in February 2026. India's ranking is also quite strong in the use of coding and data analysis. OpenAI said that this capacity is not distributed equally. The use of AI in India is limited to a few cities. The top 10 cities of India account for almost 50 percent of the total AI users.
Collectively, these cities account for less than 10 per cent of the population, making the AI adoption rate in India almost 3 times more concentrated than comparable countries like the US, UK, Brazil and Germany.
This difference is even greater for advanced use cases – use of data analysis is 30 times higher in leading cities than lagging cities, use of coding is 4 times higher, and use of AI developer (Codex) is 9 times higher. The press release said this is an indication that while India has competitive AI capabilities, its biggest advantages are concentrated in a few urban centres, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai.
These findings about the gap in capabilities highlight that beyond the top cities, some of the most meaningful use cases are emerging in sectors like education and health, highlighting how AI is being used in everyday contexts. In the field of education and learning, eastern states are seeing particularly strong engagement. An example of this is Assam, where 22 percent of all messages are related to education and learning, which is about 20 percent more than the national average. Similar trends are also seen in Odisha, Manipur, Tripura and Chhattisgarh. In the area of health and wellness, regions like Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala are seeing higher engagement.
In Jammu and Kashmir, almost 1 in 10 messages is health-related, which is about 32 percent higher than the national average. According to him, the next phase of India's AI journey will depend on how widely this capability spreads through democratization of technology (language, affordability, infrastructure).
Oliver Jay, Managing Director – International, OpenAI, said the key question now is how quickly the benefits of AI can extend beyond early adopters and leading cities to the wider population. Oliver Jay said that bridging this gap will require expanding access, developing skills and enabling greater ease of use across the country. It is an effort that will be largely shaped by India's young and rapidly adapting population.
