According to Oliver Jay, Managing Director for International Strategy at OpenAI, India is experiencing a rapid and unprecedented uptick in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, with momentum having tripled year-over-year in key sectors. He attributes this growth to India’s youthful, tech-savvy demographic—particularly the large 18-24 age cohort—and a surge in developer and enterprise engagement with frontier AI technologies.
Jay noted that OpenAI’s decision to make its “ChatGPT Go” tier available for free in India was designed to boost accessibility and align offerings with the country’s unique usage patterns, including heavy student and developer use. He also announced that OpenAI plans to open its first Indian office in New Delhi later in the year, underscoring India’s status as OpenAI’s second-largest market after the USA.
While the figures are striking, Jay emphasised that India’s strength isn’t just in adoption numbers but in talent and infrastructural readiness. He praised India’s engineering ecosystem as “unparalleled,” and said that India’s local innovation could serve as a global reference point—“if you build for India, you can build for the world.”
In conclusion, the headline message is clear: India is not merely keeping pace in the global AI race, but potentially outpacing many peers in early adoption. However, sustaining this growth will depend on deeper investments in infrastructure, regulation, skills and inclusive deployment—areas that warrant attention if the momentum is to translate into long-term leadership.
